Health Related Quality of Life for Monosymptomatic Enuretic Children and Their Mothers

Purpose: There have been few reports addressing how nocturnal enuresis affects the health related quality of life of patients and their mothers. Thus, we evaluated the health related quality of life of enuretic children and their mothers. Materials and Methods: The health related quality of life of 139 patients with nocturnal enuresis and that of their mothers were evaluated before and after treatment. The children's health related quality of life was evaluated with the Kid-KINDL (R) protocol. The mothers' health related quality of life was evaluated using the SF-36 (R), the SDS (Self-Rating Depression Scale) for rating depression and the STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) for assessing anxiety. Results: In the health related quality of life of enuretic children, the family domain score was significantly lower than that of controls (p = 0.02). In the health related quality of life of the mothers as shown by SF-36, the vitality domain score was significantly lower compared to controls (p = 0.01). The evaluation of the STAI score demonstrated a higher state anxiety score (p = 0.003), which represents current suffering from anxiety, and a similar trait anxiety score (p = 0.22), which represents a similar level of underlying tendency to anxiety. There was no significant difference between the mothers of enuretic children and the controls in the SDS evaluation. After treatment for enuresis the health related quality of life score was improved not only for the enuretic children as assessed by the Kid-KINDL protocol, but also for the mothers of enuretic children as assessed by the SF-36 and STAI. Conclusions: Similar to other pediatric chronic diseases, nocturnal enuresis is a condition that negatively affects the health related quality of life of children and their mothers. Impaired health related quality of life can be improved after the successful treatment of nocturnal enuresis.