Pattern of physical and psychological abuse and neglect among preparatory school students in Gharbia Governorate, Egypt

Child abuse and neglect is a crowing national and international public health problem. The present study aimed at studying pattern of child abuse and neglect among preparatory school students in Gharbia Governorate, Egypt. A total of 16 preparatory school students in Gharbia Governorate, Egypt were chosen by stratified random sample. Two classes from each grade level [1st. 2nd and 3rd] were randomly selected with an average class size of about 50 students. The total number of students who completed the study was 4476. They completed self report questionnaire containing socio-demographic data and data about physical and psychological abuse and neglect. Measurement of weight and height were done. Body mass index was calculated. The response rate of this survey was 97.3%. Among the 4476 responding students, the mean age was 13.16 +/- 1.78 years. prevalence of very severe assaults, severe physical maltreatment, moderate physical maltreatment, non violent discipline, psychological maltreatment and neglect were 2.08%, 18.61%, 55.07%, 90.59%, 84.72% and 71.72% respectively. Furthermore, students who were male, of younger age [below 13 years], and of lower parental education level who are victim of spousal abuse, smoker or depressed were identified as being at significant risk of maltreatment. Child maltreatment was practiced by mothers and fathers and to lesser extent by relatives and others as teachers. Of health problems associated with child abuse; 56.66% had deficits in attention, 33.18% had psychological disorders, 17.63% had depression and anxiety, 16.64% were complaining of chronic fatigue and 10.77% had obesity. There is a very high prevalence of physical and psychological abuse and neglect among preparatory school children practiced by parents and relatives with devastating associated health problems that pay attention to the importance of planning a comprehensive prevention and control program to this health problem

Prognostic cytogenetic markers in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) showing resistance to immediate induction chemotherapy in relation to conventional and advanced cytogenetic analysis. METHODS: This work was conducted on 63 ALL children (40 males and 23 females) with age range 4.5 months-16 years (mean = 7.76 years). They included 37 cases attained true remission and 26 complicated by failure of remission, early relapse or death. They were subjected to history, clinical examination and investigations including CBC, BM examination, karyotyping, FISH for translocations and flowcytometry for immunophenotyping and minimal residual disease diagnosis. RESULTS: Cases aged 50.000/mm3 also showed better but non-significant remission rates. Most of the present cases were L2 with better remission compared to other immunophenotypes. Forty informative karyotypes were subdivided into 15 hypodiploid, 10 pseudodiploid, 8 normal diploid and 7 hyperdiploid cases; the best remission rates were noticed among the most frequent ploidy patterns. Chromosomes 9, 11 and 22 were the most frequently involved by structural aberrations followed by chromosomes 5, 12 and 17. Resistance was noted with aberrations not encountered among remission group; deletions involving chromosomes 2p, 3q, 10p and 12q; translocations involving chromosome 5; trisomies of chromosomes 16 and 21; monosomies of 5 and X and inversions of 5 and 11. CONCLUSION: Some cytogenetic and molecular characterizations of childhood ALL could add prognostic criteria for proper therapy allocation.

Job satisfaction among nurse's educators at the university level [comparative study]

This study was done to compare nurse educators at both Alexandria and Cairo Higher Institute of Nursing, as regards their perception of the importance of given job characteristics to job satisfaction, the extent of their satisfaction and the predictors of their job satisfaction. A two parts questionnaire was used to collect the data. The first part collects demographic data, while the second part respondent rated the importance of job- characteristics to job satisfaction and indicated her satisfaction with each. Analysis of the data revealed, that the nurse educators at both institutes showed low degree of satisfaction. Educators ranked extrinsic factors in the importance index as more important than intrinsic factors. There was negative correlation between importance and satisfaction with some items. For Alexandria educators the intrinsic factors are the best predictor for job satisfaction, while age, years of experience, work group and self-actualization were best predictors for Cairo educators job satisfaction