Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of the common self-reported chronic diseases among adolescent students in public secondary schools in Mansoura, Egypt.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on a sample of 1493 adolescent students. Thirty clusters were selected to cover both general and vocational public schools of both sexes in urban and rural areas. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic data from the students and their families, as well as a checklist of 15 chronic diseases.

Results: About 6% of students reported one or more chronic somatic disease. The most frequent are acne vulgaris (4.2%), rheumatic heart disease (3.4%), refractive errors (1.4) and bronchial asthma (1.1%). This pattern does not show significant differences between males and females.

Conclusions: Despite the self-reported nature, our findings indicate that Egyptian adolescents are not healthy as it is often considered.