Children with UI, psychiatric disorder perform poorly in school

Urinary incontinence (UI) does not appear to affect the performance of children in school, reports a recent study.  

However, psychiatric disorder (PD) assessment is still recommended because children with UI and co-occurring PDs have significantly lower school performance, according to the researchers. 

Overall, 42,999 children with UI showed a similar performance in school relative to 429,999 reference children (difference range, –2.5 to 0.6 points). However, children with UI co-occurring with PDs showed substantially lower scores than the reference population. This decline was more pronounced among those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (difference range, –3.7 to –11.2 points). 

In addition, children with nocturnal enuresis aged ≥11 years at treatment onset had lower overall school performance than those aged 5–7 years at treatment onset (difference, –2.9, 95 percent confidence interval, –4.0 to –1.7). 

“Children with late treatment onset had lower school performance than children with early treatment onset,” the researchers said. “Further research is needed on the effect of delayed treatment on children with UI.” 

This nationwide matched cohort study was conducted in Denmark between 1997 and 2008 to examine the relationship between UI and results from standardized National School Tests from 2010 to 2018 (1- to 100-point scale). 

The researchers estimated differences in test scores between children with UI and matched references using multiple linear regression, with adjustments for relevant confounders. They also performed subanalyses to assess the impact of PDs and age at treatment onset.