RESUMO
Secretory otitis media [SOM] is a common otological disorder, that most of the time is left undiagnosed on account of unawareness and negligence in seeking early medical attention for trivial ailments. Untreated, it might end up in serious consequences in the form of poor speech and intellectual development and permanent anatomical abnormalities within middle ear cleft. Secretory otitis media [SOM] is very common among day care and primary school children but there were no previous community based studies conducted to show the prevalence of SOM among these children in Sohag governorate. A stratified random sample was taken from day care centers and primary school children in Sohag district according to the geographical distribution [urban or rural]. Randomly chosen classrooms from each selected day care centers and schools were selected. One thousand and twenty children of both groups were studied. 217 out of 1020 [21.3%] had SOM. 23% of children in urban schools had SOM comparing to 19.5% in rural schools. SOM is very common otological disease [21.3%] at age of 4 and 6 years. Prevalence of SOM is commoner in children in urban schools than those in rural schools