الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Child abuse is a major public health issue due not only to the sheer volume of intensive medical and social services utilized by its . victims but also to the associated long-term physical and psychological disabilities. Child maltreatment includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. It was explained that maltreatment is a product of three functions, pre-existing deviancy in the child, personality of the parents and enviromental stress. Pre-school age is refereed to allover the world as the .., neglected or dark-age of childhood. This due to lack of both family and public care. For children in every society, the initial environment is the family, and all now would regard a satisfactory, secure and loving family life is the most essential factor for normal development in all its aspects. There are several needs for proper health of the child. These are physical needs and needs for proper emotional development as need for love, for security, occupation, self-esteem, increasing independence, acceptance and need for discipline. . Physical abuse was defined as; any injury to the child caused by a care-taker for any reason, including injury resulting from a saretaker’s reaction to an unwanted behaviour. injury includes tissue damage beyond erythema or redness from a slap to any area other than the hand or buttocks. Neglect is usually defined as a willful omission of condition necessary for proper growth and emotional development. In other words, any child whose parent or other person responsible for the child’s welfare does not provide proper care. Proper care includes necessary support, education as required by law. It also includes medical or remedical care. Neglect has several types. It includes, medical care neglect, educational neglect, abandonment, emotional neglect and physical neglect. Medical care neglect means the consistent failure to administer medicines, to secure medical follow up, or to obtain needed medical therapy under persistent medical guidance. This is considered in both life threatening and non life-threatening situations. Physical neglect implies failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter or routine physical care. There are different factors affecting the occurrence of child abuse, these are child factor, abuser factor and environmental factors; the child often has characteristics that make him or her provocative such as negativism or difficult temperament. The population of children who are considered to be at higher risk for abuse are adopted children, step children, .ter children, handicapped children, hyperactive children especially males and premature children. Over 90 of abusing parents have neither psychotic nor criminal personalities they tend to be lcmely, unhappy, angry adults, under heavy stress and often themselves have experienced physical abuse as children. Groups li ving in poverty may have an increased number of crisis in their lives (e.g. unemployment or c>vercrowding). the occassion initiating the abuse is usually a family crisis. The most common crisis include loss of a job or home, marital strife or physical exhaustion. Any society which allows too many of its children to grow up without love is storing up problems for the future. The child usually reacts to abuse in one of 2 ways either by withdrawing (becomes quiet and passive) or becoming violent, hostile and acts, out his aggression on other people. Such individuals rarely complain of abuse and often grow up to abuse their own children. There can be no doubt that physical abuse and neglect of children leads to short stature and failure to thrive. The aim of the present work is to determine the prevalence of child. abuse and neglect among a sample of pre-school children and to study some of its ecological factors. To accomplish this aim a proportional sample was selected from the six districts of Alexandria the total sample was 400 children 217 boys and 183 girls. The following tools were used: 1. Personal interve to mother or any other care-taker to collect information about sodo-economic level including education of parent, income, crowding index, level of sanitation in the house. . The questionnaire also included information related to family health, information related to the child, information related to child care and familial relationship. 2. Nutritional assessment The assessment of the nutritional status of the child was done by anthropometry and daily nutrient intake which was assessed by taking the daily dietary intake using the 24 hours recall method and frequency of food consumption. 3. General physical examination: To inspect any scars or bruises and also to inspect any other signs of diseases. 4. A pre-school behavioural checklist test (BCL) was used using objective description of behaviour obtained from parents dutil1g the last a weeks of the intervention. The results obtained in this work could be summarized in the following items.