A questionnaire designed to investigate physicians' knowledge of and experiences with child abuse, familiarity with New York State reporting laws, and characteristics of abusing families was sent to pediatricians and family practitioners in Monroe County, New York. The physicians were asked to estimate the number of child abuse cases that they saw and the number of child abuse cases that they reported in the last year (1978) and in the last five years (1974-1978). They were also asked to distinguish between cases of actual abuse (in which evidence of abuse was unquestionable) and cased of suspected abuse. Of these 170 physicians polled, 74 (43.5%) responded. Results indicated that physicians had both seen and reported roughly as many cased of suspected and actual child abuse in the last year as in each of the last five years. Also, the number of suspected cased generally exceeded the number of actual cases, and the number of cases reported was roughly 40% of the number of cases seen. About half of the physicians had had experience with abuse cases in the last year, and about three quarters of them had had such experience in the last five years. Other data are reported on the physicians' knowledge of the legal responsibilities in cases of child abuse, their training in the area of child abuse, their definitions of child abuse, and their beliefs regarding the characteristics of abusing families. (Author/SS)