Relationship between nocturnal enuresis and sleep in children and adolescents

Nocturnal enuresis (NE) is a multifactorial and complex condition. One less understood factor in its pathophysiology is the enuretic inability to wake up when the bladder is full (impaired arousal).

We aimed to investigate the relationship between sleep and NE in children and adolescents.

A systematic review was performed following the PRISMA guidelines, and the electronic databases MEDLINE (via PubMed) and SCOPUS were searched until March 2022. Eligibility criteria were studies that recruited patients aged five-17 years with a diagnosis of NE according to the International Child Continence Society (ICCS), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (DSM-5), or International Classification Criteria of Sleep Disorders-Third edition (ICSD-3) who had their sleep assessed using validated questionnaires and/or polysomnography. The tool used to analyze the risk of bias in the included studies was the risk of bias in non-randomized studies of exposure.

Of 1582 citations screened, nine were included, giving 1685 participants, 581 with NE. All studies were observational and half had a low risk of bias. Four studies evaluated sleep by questionnaires only; two used questionnaires and polysomnography; two used only polysomnography, and one used sleep logs and actigraphy. Sleep questionnaires showed that children with enuresis had more sleep problems than controls, especially parasomnias, breathing disorders, and daytime sleepiness. Among the polysomnography parameters, the sleep stage architecture and periodic limb movements during sleep had conflicting data between the two studies.

The studies evaluated sleep through heterogeneous tools. They used different questionnaires; even those considered by polysomnography did not record the same channels.

It seems that enuretic children and adolescents sleep differently from those who are non-enuretic. More studies are needed to clarify the best way to assess sleep and better understand this relationship. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO, CRD42021266338. There was no funding.