• P Suesser, S Letrait, and B Welniarz.
• Service de protection maternelle et infantile, direction enfance et famille, Conseil Général de Seine-Saint-Denis, BP 193, 93003 Bobigny.
• Sante Publique. 2001 Dec 1; 13 (4): 389-401.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to describe the attitudes and practices of doctors and families regarding the use of the individual child health journal, especially by exploring the contradictions between the validity and confidentiality of its content, in particular with respect to HIV infection. In order to accomplish this, both doctors (N = 380) and families (N = 242) were questioned, most of them living and working in Seine-Saint-Denis, the metropolitan district with the third highest prevalence rate of HIV. The findings indicate that: most families are not always prepared to make sure that the confidential use of the child's health journal is maintained, and even less so those affected by HIV; doctors refrain from recording certain psychological and even medical data in the child health journal for fear of the information's misuse within the social sphere; doctors as well as families expressed their preoccupations concerning the confidentiality of the child health journal, essentially with respect to its content and how it is used in various contexts. A number of possibilities are proposed by the study's participants: establish a vaccination record separate from the child health journal, educate parents on how to maintain its confidential use and train the health workers to this end.

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