A comparison between children and adolescents with primary nocturnal enuresis: impact and behavior problems

This study aimed to compare children and adolescents with primary nocturnal enuresis in regards of the impact of the experience of enuresis and the presence of behavior problems. The study was conducted on children (n=76) and adolescents (n=26) registered in the Projeto Enurese from the Psychology Institute of the Universidade de São Paulo. Their mothers were asked to fill out the Child Behavior Checklist. The children and adolescents were engaged in a structured interview. The answers were associated to different degrees of enuresis impact. There wasn't significant association between age group and degree of nocturnal enuresis impact, only a tendency to find greater degrees of impact among adolescents. On regards of Child Behavior Checklist scores, there were no significant differences between children and adolescents. The results only pointed to a slight tendency of children to present a greater frequency of clinical scores in all Child Behavior Checklist problem scales.

adolescents; children; enuresis; behavior problems