The epidemiology and factors associated with nocturnal enuresis and its severity in primary school children in Taiwan.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the prevalence of nocturnal enuresis among children in elementary school in Taiwan and to evaluate its associated factors and severity.


METHODS
A randomly selected cross-sectional study was conducted from elementary schools in Changhua county, Taiwan in 2003. In all, 9228 questionnaires were sent to 46 schools in 26 districts.


RESULTS
A total of 92.1% (8496/9228) of questionnaires were completed. The overall prevalence of nocturnal enuresis was 6.8%. The ratio of male to female was about 1.5 (8.0% vs. 5.5%). The prevalence of enuresis according to age group declined from 12.5% at 6 years to 2.0% at 12 years. The prevalence of enuresis in the urban area did not show significant difference from that of rural area (6.2% vs. 6.9%). Of the factors associated with enuresis, gender, age, urinary frequency or urgency, heredity, drinking habit before sleep and difficulty in waking showed significant difference after multiple logistic regression analysis. After multivariate analysis, difficulty in waking and time of wetting were the only factors significantly associated with the severity of enuresis.


CONCLUSIONS
Our investigation showed the prevalence of enuresis is similar to those reports from the north of Taiwan and most of other western countries, but higher than that of China and Hong-Kong. Difficulty in waking and time of wetting were the only factors significantly associated with the severity of enuresis.
Tai
Hui-Lung
HL
Division of Urology, Changhua Christian Hospital, 135 Nanhsiao Street, Changhua City, 500 Taiwan. 49141@cch.org.tw
Chang
Yu-Jun
YJ
Chang
Sally Chia-Chien
SC
Chen
Gin-Den
GD
Chang
Chin-Pao
CP
Chou
Ming-Chih
MC
D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D053206:Nocturnal Enuresis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology