Epidemiolcgical Study of Communicative disorders In Upper Egypt

Abstract

The percentage of communicatively impaired people who have access to speech and hearing therapy services in the developing world in general had shown that there was dearth of speech and hearing services, especially in the rural areas (Penn 1978.,Drew, 1982 and Aron,1984).The frequency of occurrence of communicative disorders deduced from hospital statistics provides only a crude indication of the actual prevalence of the condition. There are few published surveys that are designed specifically to describe the total population clients with disorders of communication (Brophy, 1992). To establish informative base line data about the size and distribution of communicative disorders a population-based survey, and not from hospital-based study, was conducted in Assiut which is one of governorates ofUpper Egypt. Being the actual first trial to do this field epidemiological study in Egypt, this study throw the light on one of the usually missed health problems in the developing countries. Cross-sectional studies measure the prevalence of disease and are often called prevalence studies. Cross-sectional studies are relatively easy and economical to conduct. Data from cross-sectional studies are helpful in assessing the health care needs of populations (Beaglehole, 1993). The present study was conducted in two rural areas and one sector of the urban stratum; the two rural areas were Ezbet El-Masry village which is one of the satellites ofEl­ Masara village that is located on the east side of the Nile and is one of the villages of Markaz El-Fath. It is about 10 km. From Assiut city. The second village was Arab E ­ Madabegh which is located on the West Side of the Nile and one of the satellites of Drunka village which is one of the villages ofMarkaz Assiut and is about 9 km. From Assiut city. Assiut has more than 800 satellites villages. The total rural population surveyed was 1818 individuals. The urban survey was carried out a small sector of east Assiut, a settlement that has a mixture of different socioeconomic standard families. The population visited in this settlement were 1353 individuals were surveyed. There was a statistically significant difference between the study areas with regard to socio­ economical status. The urban sector mostly belonged to either high or middle class but the rural areas mostly belonged to either low or very low class.