Background: Intellectual disabilities in childhood constitutes a major health problem throughout the world and a handicapping illness with long term costly treatment and bad impact on the family. It constitutes a major problem in Egypt affecting the quality of life of children and the welfare of their families.
Objective: To identify the prevalence and risk factors of intellectual disabilities in children aged 2-16 years in the Pediatric Neurology Out-patient Clinic, Al-Azhar University Hospital, Assiut.
Patients and Methods: The present study included one thousand (1000) children randomly selected and examined for the presence of intellectual disabilities from patient attending the clinic, ninety of them (9%) (63 males - 27 females) had intellectual disabilities. The present study has been conducted at the pediatric neurology out-patient clinic of Al-Azhar University in Assiut from 1/11/2018 to 30/6/2019.
Results: There was a significant statistical attachment between intellectual disabilities and family's socioeconomic profile in terms of residence, maternal and paternal education, and Father's job and parent's consanguinity. In the present study the total number of cases was 90, 63 males 27 females, 76% of cases were coming from rural areas while 24% of cases were coming from urban areas. As regards the investigation, neuro-imaging (CT-MRI) was not done in (41.1 %) while normal in (38.9 %), (11.1%) with brain atrophy, (6.7%) with focal lesion and congenital brain malformation represent (2.2 %).
Conclusion: Mentally retarded cases are more common in rural areas and male sex. Socioeconomic factors like education of parents and parental consanguinity play a role in the occurrence of MR.