The attitude of general practitioners (GPs) to the drug surveillance system and the sources of information on drugs were assessed by a postal questionnaire sent to a sample of 600 GPs in the Midi-Pyrénées area. The results were compared to those obtained in a sample of young residents in the Toulouse University Hospital. The response rate of the GPs was 39.0 per cent (residents: 44.7 per cent). The lack of reporting was important in GPs (53.4 per cent) as well as in residents (52.6 per cent). In comparison with residents, GPs often did not know where and how notify adverse drug reactions (ADR) (8.0 per cent vs 21.0 per cent, p < 0.05). GPs notified mainly to pharmaceutical manufacturer (86.6 per cent), to the Pharmacovigilance Centre (15.4 per cent) or to the Toxicology Centre (9.1 per cent). However, the Pharmacovigilance Centre was found to give the best response, with 90 per cent of satisfying answers, for 47.9 per cent of GP and 44.0 per cent of residents. Ten years after the law founding the ADR reporting scheme in France, drug surveillance structures are still poorly understood.