[Prevalence of nocturnal enuresis in school-age children]

Bed-wetting is a frequent feature in school-age children. A pilot transversal study was carried out in school-children from the city of Villeurbanne in order to study the prevalence of bed-wetting in school-age children. Answers to a questionnaire were exhaustively obtained from 1,677 children in primary school before school-camp. An other questionnaire was given to parents of children from nursery-school: answers were obtained for 386 children, i.e. 95% of the sample. The rate of children suffering from bed-wetting was 49% between 3 and 4 years of age, 4% between 7 and 6 years of age and 1% between 11 and 12 years of age. These results are comparable to those reported in the literature. Within the range 4-7 years of age, the estimation of bed-wetting exhibited a lower frequency in the school-camp questionnaire probably reflecting its speculated social inconvenience, as compared with the answers to the nursery-school questionnaire rather reflecting a close estimation of property attainment. The reported prevalence rates provided no discriminant criteria regarding the mechanism of bed-wetting.