Enuresis and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in Children and Adolescents Department of Psychiatry

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent psychiatric disorder in children; perhaps relationship between ADHD and enuresis is still unknown. Comorbidity confers an additional risk to the simple symptomatic expression, and a greater complexity from the diagnostic and therapeutic viewpoints. The primary endpoint was to find out the Comorbidity between enuresis and ADHD in our population. A retrospective, casecontrol study was designed. This study analyzed retrospectively a total of 1536 clinical histories of new patients (5-17 years of age) attending the outpatient clinic from 2002 to 2007. Patients with ADHD (according to DSM-IV criteria) were selected, and the presence of comorbidity with nocturnal enuresis or sphincter control was examined. We observed that nocturnal enuresis is a significant and common comorbid condition with ADHD (OR=2.27). We also found that ADHD is associated to a greater probability of lack of nocturnal sphincter control at 4 years of age [OR: 5.39 95%CI: 3.70–7.86; p<0.05] and to experience enuresis from 5 years of age [OR: 2.27 95%CI: 1.17–4.3; p<0.05]. This association is both ageand sex-dependent. Because of the potential implications of both disorders on the physical and emotional development, routine screening for nocturnal enuresis should be required in children diagnosed with ADHD, and the potential presence of ADHD would have to be explored in patients with delayed nocturnal control of bladder sphincters or nocturnal enuresis.