Impact of nocturia on sleep and quality of life: A brief, selected review for the International Consultation on Incontinence Research Society (ICI‐RS) nocturia think tank

Nocturia, the need to awaken at night to void, is a highly prevalent disorder that negatively affects nocturnal sleep, increases daytime tiredness, and adversely impacts quality of life. In this selective review, we provide the reader an overview of current work in this area. From the perspective of disturbed sleep, two divergent perspectives have emerged from the literature when discussing nocturia. The first is that a patient awakens because of an urge to urinate. The second is that a patient awakens during the night for some reason unrelated to urinary urge (e.g., an awakening from an environmental source or from intrinsic lightening of sleep) and then decides to void while awake. In the few studies that have inquired about nocturia as a cause of awakenings, nocturia often ranks above the traditional psychological or physical factors. Not only is nocturia likely to disrupt sleep, but it may impact waking quality of life as well. A number of generic and nocturia‐related questionnaires have been used to quantify the effect of nocturia on quality of life. In this short paper, we introduce the reader to several key studies in these important areas. Neurourol. Urodynam. 33:S15–S18, 2014 . © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.