The differences in health concerns between mothers and health care professionals in a preventive community set up.

To assess the degree to which mothers, nurses and pediatricians share common concerns regarding infants' health and well-being a cross-sectional survey with stratified demographic sampling was conducted. A 12-item questionnaire pertaining to health concerns was administered to 22 mothers of infants between 1 and 18 months of age, treated at six Well Baby community clinics with 36 nurses and 25 pediatricians. Mothers and health care professionals expressed significantly different concerns. Pediatricians and nurses shared a more similar order of concerns. However, they too differed on the degree of concern related to some of the health issues, i.e. nurses perceived the issues related to feeding, behaviour, skin, sleep and daily routines as significantly more important than did pediatricians. Additional efforts should be devoted to improve and clarify communication between mothers and health care professionals.