Demographics of enuresis patients attending a referral centre.

OBJECTIVE

To study and compare the demography of enuretic children 7-16 years old attending a tertiary referral centre for childhood urinary incontinence, with that of normal children and what is generally known about enuretics from population-based studies.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

This was a retrospective analysis of data compiled from 298 enuretic patients referred to The Centre of Child Incontinence, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark, and 53 healthy controls. Data was obtained by conducting standardised questionnaire interviews. Patients were stratified according to accompanying symptoms and severity of enuresis. Statistical analysis of the results was then performed.

RESULTS

Two hundred and ninety-three patients had sufficient data registered to allow reliable analysis. Male-female ratio was 2.2:1. Primary and secondary enuresis was found in 87.4% and 11.6% of the patients respectively. Enuresis was associated with a reported history of bronchial asthma (p < 0.05), verified allergy (p < 0.05) and a positive family history of the same disorder (p < 0.01). No association with psycho-developmental factors was evident. Approximately 98% of the patients had undergone some form of therapy at presentation. 74.1% of the patients had pure monosymptomatic enuresis, 16.4% had day and night time incontinence, while the remaining 9.6% had nocturnal incontinence combined with other lower urinary tract symptoms other than daytime wetting.

CONCLUSIONS

The demography of our patient population was, with a few exceptions, within the confines of what has previously been reported. Our results also reaffirmed the heterogeneity of enuretic patients.