Sleep and night-time behaviour of enuretics and non-enuretics.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate connections between nocturnal enuresis and sleep factors such as the subjective depth of sleep and classical parasomnias.

PATIENTS, SUBJECTS AND METHODS: One hundred school children aged 6-10 years answered a questionnaire, with their parents, and the same questions were asked of a group of 29 children of the same age suffering from severe nocturnal enuresis.

RESULTS

There were significant differences in arousability, with the enuretic group being 'deep sleepers', and in the prevalence of onset insomnia, nightmares, interrupted sleep and bedtime struggles, which were all less common among the enuretics. The prevalence of classical parasomnias did not differ between the groups.

CONCLUSION

A high arousal threshold is one of the pathogenetic factors underlying nocturnal enuresis and we propose that this group of therapy-resistant enuretic children might not only sleep more deeply than their nonenuretic peers, but perhaps have 'better' sleep.