Enuretical children and referred children for university mental health services: a comparative study of their parents' perception

The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was completed by the parents of 66 children age six to ten years old with nocturnal primary enuresis (i.e., children who wet the bed only at night and have never attained nocturnal urinary control), under treatment at the Enuresis Project of the Institute of Psychology of the Universidade de São Paulo, and by the parents of 235 children referred for psychological counseling services at five Brazilian mental health centers for a comparison of their perceptions regarding to their children's behavior profile. In most cases, enuretical children have obtained better results than the referred children regarding social competence as a whole and to academic, social contact and attention problems. These results seem to show that distinct psychological counseling strategies should be adopted for the two populations, focused on the primary enuresis problem in the first group and on the social and academic problems in the second group.