Life events and their impact on bladder control in children.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between incidence and nature of life events within families and age of bladder control acquisition in healthy children.

Subjects And Methods: Thirty-five parents of 36, 6-year-old children were interviewed using the Coddington life events questionnaire.

Results: The children had experienced a total of 185 life events (mean 5, median 4.5, range 1-12) before the time of dryness. The most common were related to childcare/occupation of parent (51%), illness/injury/death (24%), family composition (16%) and living conditions (9%). There was a strong correlation between the number of life events and the age of dryness; the more life events and the older the child was when experiencing them, the later the child became dry. The only single event that was significantly associated with a later age of dryness was the birth of a sister or brother. In general, children had reacted positively (39%) or neutrally, but to 30% of events there was a negative reaction. There was a correlation between the reaction of the child and adaptation to the life event, and if the child had difficulty adapting to an event, that child became day dry at a later age.

Conclusion: Although life events are a natural part of daily life, this study supports the conclusion that a large number of events and events to which the child has difficulty adapting can be of importance for the age of acquisition of bladder control.