title: Assessment of urinary symptoms in children with dysfunctional elimination syndrome.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study was organized to form a symptom scale for diagnosis and assessment of urinary and bowel symptoms in children with dysfunctional elimination syndrome (DES).
  
  
  METHODS
  The study group included 81 children presented to our clinic with symptoms of DES like enuresis, abnormal voiding, urinary tract infection and urgency, between January 2003 and February 2004. Age matched 102 children with no history of urological complaints were randomly recruited from a public school as control group. Children with isolated, mono-symptomatic nocturnal enuresis were not taken to the study. All children and parents were requested to fill a 35-item questionnaire related to symptoms of DES. After statistical analysis, questions from the initial form that had a P-value <0.05 and an area under curve (AUC) value >0.6 were selected to form a final scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean ages for study and control groups were 8.7 +/- 2.5 and 8.3 +/- 2.2 years, respectively (P = 0.236). The final scale was composed of 15 questions. The cut-off score for the presence of DES was determined as 7.5 (sensitivity 85.2%, specificity 93.1%, AUC value = 0.943) for the total population. When only the male population were concerned the cut-off score was 4.5 (sensitivity 93.8%, specificity 78%, AUC value = 0.913) while the cut-off score for the female population was 7.5 (sensitivity 87.7%, specificity 94.2%, AUC value = 0.953).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Providing objective assessment of symptom severity, formation of a validated scoring system for children with DES might be a good tool for diagnosis, confirmation of treatment results and follow up. It might also be useful for screening purposes.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, Department of Urology, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Hüsnü
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tokgöz
authors.forename: Mustafa Ozgür
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Ilker
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sen
authors.forename: Mustafa Necmi
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Ilhan
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Biri
authors.forename: Ibrahim
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bozkirli
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013577:Syndrome; D014555:Urination Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*