A method is disclosed for transmitting and receiving packetized data having multiple protocol headers in a packet data communication system. An operating state of a network is determined, and a period for transmitting a full packet is decided according to a result of the determination. Full packets having uncompressed headers are transmitted during periodic transmission times according to the decided full-packet transmission period, and compressed packets are transmitted in other transmission times. If the operating state of the network is decided to be a congested state according to an average packet retransmission ratio produced in a period for measuring the operating state of the network, the full-packet transmission period is set to "1". A value of the full-packet transmission period in an unloaded state is twice a value of the full-packet transmission period in a normal state. Thus, the number of packets to be discarded due to packet loss can be reduced, and the efficiency of transmission can be improved by header compression technologies.