Toilet training and parental help-seeking behavior toward elimination disorders: Our experience in a semi-urban setting

Abstract

Introduction: Elimination disorders consist of enuresis and encopresis. When a child fails to successfully achieve toilet training by the age of five and has repeated voiding of urine on the bed or clothing at least twice per week for at least 3 consecutive months it is called enuresis; while bowel continence if not achieved by age 4 years, is encopresis. This study seeks to determine parental/caregiver concerns and help-seeking behaviors toward elimination disorders. Materials and Methods: This study was cross-sectional and was conducted over a 3-month period from January 2017 to March 2017. Convenience sampling method was adopted, and pretested researchers-administered questionnaires were used. Results: Two hundred individuals were recruited consisting of 104 (52%) males and 96 (48%) females with a male-to-female ratio of 1.1:1. About 194 (97%) of the respondents were aware of elimination disorders, 62 (31.0%) of them reported elimination disorder occurred in their wards, only 24.2% of the caregivers had sought for medical treatment for elimination disorder. Majority of the caregivers did not know the cause of elimination disorder, but 2% of them believed evil spirits were responsible for elimination disorders. Enuresis was the most commonly reported elimination disorder and most occurred at night (80.6%), and none had isolated encopresis. Ethnicity and educational qualification of respondents had no relationship with their help-seeking behavior toward elimination disorder ([Fishers' exact test = 11.337, P = 0.023] and [Fishers' exact test = 8.074, P = 0.089]). Conclusion: Elimination disorders were prevalent; however, few caregivers seek for medical help/treatment, and their help-seeking behavior was not influenced by their ethnicity or educational qualification.