What do mothers think about the well-child program?

Abstract Objectives: to analyze the mother?s perspective about the well-child program. We describe their doubts and sources of information about their children?s health, development and education, as well as their opinion about the program, perception and accomplishment of the pediatrician?s advice. Design: cross-sectional descriptive survey. Material, methods and participants: we built a questionnaire with 31 questions, applied by interviews to the 72 mothers attending the visits of the program. The questionnaire included the following areas of the pediatrician?s intervention: feeding, sleeping, general care, psychomotor development, language, prevention of accidents and illnesses. Main results: the mothers? main sources of information where the following, by order of importance: their mate, family, pediatrician and nurse. They mention more positive aspects of the program than negative ones. The most valued aspect was the personal treatment of the pediatrician and the worst valued aspects were the structural conditions of the visit (accessibility, schedule, convenience). More than half of the mothers considered that the pediatrician always or almost always examined carefully their children (65%) and that the information given was clear (57%), so as the recommendations (67%). The evaluation of the pediatricians who were more experienced and keen on the program is significantly higher than the rest of the pediatricians in every studied aspect: clarity of the recommendations (p = 0,001); clarity of the information (p = 5 * 10-5); careful examination of the children (p = 0,009). Conclusion: the andalusian mothers get more support from their basic social relations than from the technicians to build their criteria of upbringing. They value the program positively and they value better the more experienced pediatricians that were keen on the program. Key words: Children?s health, Mothers, Pediatricians, Development, Education.