Objective:

To identify age of initiation of toilet training and affecting factors for children.

Material and Methods:

861 children were included in this study. “Chi square test”, “Mann-Whitney U Test” and “Kruskall-Wallis Variance Analysis” statistical analysis methods have been applied. Ethical permission has been provided by local ethical committee.

Results:

861 children under age of five were evaluated in this study (average age was 4±0.9); 433 children were boy (50.3%), 428 children were girl (49.7%). Age of initiation of toilet training was younger than 1 years old for 45 children (5.2%), between 13-18 month for 223 children (25.9%), between 19-24 month for 307 children (35.7%), between 25-30 month for 201 children (23.3%) and older than 30 month for 85 children (9.9%). That families who live below hunger threshold and small families initiate toilet training earlier that other families were determined (p=0.001). Children in 19-24 month have shorter duration of toilet training than other groups (p<0.05). That children who live in shanty have longer duration of toilet training than children who live in apartment were determined (p=0,031). That 219 children (25.4%) who had faced traumatic experiences which may affect training process, recently have longer duration of toilet training than other children (p=0,008). Duration of the training is shorter for families who did not use toilet training methods than families who used methods.

Conclusion:

In our study, we found that age of initiation of toilet training is smaller for children who belong to family which has low level of income and small families. Duration of training is the longer for children whose initiation of toilet training was earlier than 18 month and later than 30 month, live in shanty, faced traumatic experiences.

Keywords: Toilet training, age of initiation, duration of training