[Experiences and attitudes of parents to ambulatory preventive and curative medical care in infancy and early childhood].

376 families having a two-year-old child were asked about their experience and opinion concerning their child's outpatient preventive and curative medical care. Half the sample resides in two urban areas ("the city") and half the sample resides in three non-urban ("the country") locations with no practising paediatrician at the time of the interview. In the city, all but 4.6% of the parents took their children to a paediatrician for the first vaccinations at three months. Nearly all the paediatricians used this opportunity to fully examine the child. In the country areas, 59% of the families had their children vaccinated by the family doctor, 38% of whom used the occasion to fully examine the child. The other 41% brought the child to the nearest city in order to visit a paediatrician. A majority of parents (80%) in all sampled areas expressed a desire for regular well-baby examinations by a physician. The well-baby clinics staffed by nurses are used significantly more frequently by country parents than by city parents. In the country, there is no difference between those families using a paediatrician and those using a family doctor. The data suggest that the clinics are a supplement, and not a replacement, for the preventive care given by a physician.