Pattern of skin diseases among primary school children in Basrah Southern Iraq

الملخص EN

A survey was conducted in Basrah involving a random sample of 720 children obtained from lists of names in 12 primary schools.

The sample covered 20% of pupils registered in the first, third and sixth classes of each school.-The study was a cross-sectional aiming at determining the prevalence rates and distribution of skin diseases among these children.

The sample consisted of 364 boys and 356 girls.

The sample was drawn in such away to ensure fair distribution of schools in different parts of the city of Basrah.

The results showed that 229 or 318 % of the study children had some sort of skin disease at the time of the study.

With respect to sex, the prevalence rate was 29.4 % among boys and 34.3 % among giris but the difference was statistically not significant.

Regarding the prevalence rates in different classes, they were 23.3 %, 30.4 % and 41.7 % among children in the first, third and sixth class in that order.

The prevalence rates of the most common skin diseases among children were Pityriasis alba {5.6 %), Pediculosis (5.4 %), atopic dermatitis (3.6 %), acne (3.6 %), bacterial infection (3.5 %), foot eczema (2.2 %), warts (2.1%) and hand eczema (1.4 %).

The results suggest the need for school health services to emphasize the skin diseases as an important health problem together with other activities in their programmers.