Objective
To compare key-person method with census method on the prevalence of physically disabled students and to obtain the prevalence of the physically disabled students in rural community.

Method
Total 4,890 students of 20 schools in Kyungaido province were surveyed in 1997. Two-thousands and twenty-two students of 8 schools were surveyed by a census method and 2,868 students of 12 schools by a key-person method.

Results
The prevalence of the physically disabled students in rural community was 0.53% of the population. The prevalence of the physically disabled students was 0.69% by a census method and 0.42% by a key-person method. This result suggests that there is no significant difference in the prevalence of physically disabled students between the two survey methods (p＞0.05).

Conclusion
A key-person method is as effective as a census method for prevalence survey of physically disabled students in rural communities because of cost effectiveness and less personnel.