London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Ealing 1963

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ealing]

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Table I

Age5-78-910-1112-1314-15
Males221015105
Females1731044
Total391325149

When the buzzers were removed the children were either dry for a period of three
weeks or thought unlikely to show improvement or further improvement. The results
are shown in Table II.

Table II

DryImprovedWet
Males341513
Females3026
Total641719

Of the 100 children treated 64 had become dry. A further 17 were improved and 19
had made no improvement. Taking the dry and improved groups together a favourable
response was found in 81 of the cases.
Of the 19 children who were still wet when the buzzers were removed seven were
five years old and the others were spread evenly over the age range up to 11 years old.
While it is almost impossible to decide why a particular child has not responded to
treatment the health visitor felt that a number of adverse factors could be identified.
These were:—
(a) Where both parents were working. This seemed to be associated with a lack
of interest and supervision. Mothers had less time to give to their children's
problems and were understandably less willing to get up at night when the
alarm went off.
(b) Parents of low intelligence.
(c) Where a parent had himself or herself been an enuretic and grown out of it
without or despite treatment. The assumption was that the child would do the
same. This attitude had of course not prevented advice from being sought in
the first place, but in the absence of a rapid cure was a bar to persistence in
treatment.
(d) Where a child was a very heavy sleeper.
(e) Where a child showed evidence of laziness in other directions.
(f) Where the child was of very anxious personality.
At the follow-up visit at least six months later 11 of the dry children were found to
have relapsed, as shown in Table III.
64