title: [What do paediatricians and mothers talk about in the well-child program visits?].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Paediatricians are the parents' main formal counselling source on their children's development and education. Unfortunately, there is limited knowledge on the content and the characteristics of their counselling practice. This study analyses the visit duration, topics discussed, and parent and paediatrician initiatives.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed a content analysis of 49 visits to 5 paediatricians. We classified the topics discussed into 7 categories: secondary prevention, primary prevention, health promotion, development, education, focused on the parents and family relationship.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The duration of the visit was within the recommended limits (M=16.1; SD=5.6) and the content was very dense (14.3 topics per visit). The paediatricians' priorities were: feeding (100%), diseases (71%), psychomotor development (67%) and growth (53%), and those of the mothers were: minor health problems (37%), growth (33%), feeding (27%) and behaviour (24%). Significant differences among paediatricians were observed in all the studied dimensions. We observed a balance in the communication between paediatricians and mothers in the emission of words and in the introduction of topics. The mother's educational level had no effect on the studied parameters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are different paediatric styles, and their study could help paediatricians to improve their professional practice. We observed a balance in the emission of words and the introduction of topics by paediatricians and mothers. We did not identify communication barriers as regards the mother's educational level. The introduction of more psychosocial topics could help to improve the program.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología, Universidad del Algarve, Faro, Portugal. csnunes@ualg.pt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nunes
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ayala
mesh_terms: D002662:Child Health Services; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009035:Mothers; D009819:Office Visits; D010372:Pediatrics