Childhood enuresis. I. Sleep patterns and psychopathology.

Forty severely enuretic boys (mean age, 10.8 years) were selected; 20 had associated psychiatric disturbance and 20 had enuresis as an isolated symptom. Psychiatrically disturbed enuretics had both slightly higher scores on a neurological examination for "soft signs" and more "stressful" background events. Enuretic events were not associated with a particular sleep stage; disturbed and nondisturbed enuretics did not differ from each other with respect to the distribution of enuretic events by sleep stage. The results do not support the concepts of enuresis as an arousal disorder or of there being different sleep profiles of enuresis in relation to behavioral pathology.