During Toilet Training, Constipation Occurs Before Stool Toileting Refusal Nathan J. Blum, MD*; Bruce Taubman, MD‡; and Nicole Nemeth, MD§ ABSTRACT. Background. Previous studies demon- of STR suggests that for many of these children consti- strated that constipation and painful defecation are asso- pation is a chronic problem that is not being treated ciated with stool toileting refusal (STR), but whether effectively. Therefore, hard bowel movements and pain- they are the result of STR or occur before this behavior is ful defecation are factors that potentially contribute to not known. the STR and for the majority of children are not caused Objective. To determine whether constipation and solely by the STR behavior. Additional studies are painful defecation occur as a result of STR or occur needed to determine whether earlier and more effective before STR. treatment of constipation could decrease the incidence of Methods. Three hundred eighty children between 17 STR. Pediatrics 2004;113:e520–e522. URL: http://www. and 19 months of age participated in a prospective lon- pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/e520; toilet training, gitudinal study of toilet training. Children were moni- constipation, stool toileting refusal. tored with telephone interviews every 2 to 3 months until the completion of daytime toilet training. Information obtained in follow-up interviews included parents’ re- ABBREVIATIONS. STR, stool toileting refusal. ports on the presence and frequency of hard bowel move- ments, painful defecation, and child toilet training be- revious studies documented associations be- haviors. Children were defined as completing daytime tween a variety of toilet training problems and toilet training when they were experiencing <4 urine 1 accidents per week and <2 episodes of fecal soiling per Pconstipation. For example, Schonwald et al month. Children were defined as having frequent hard noted that constipation occurred for 82% of children bowel movements if the parents reported a hard bowel who were difficult to toilet train but only 53% of a movement approximately once per week in >2 follow-up comparison group. Constipation was reported to oc- telephone interviews or more than once per week in 1 cur for 54% of children with stool toileting refusal follow-up telephone interview. (STR), compared with 7% of a toilet-trained group.2 Results. The mean age at the completion of daytime Constipation during toilet training was reported for ؎ toilet training was 36.8 6.1 months (range: 22–54 30% of individuals with primary encopresis, com- months). Ninety-three children (24.4%) developed STR. pared with only 19% of those with secondary enco- Parents of children who developed STR, in comparison presis,3 and painful defecation before 3 years of age with the rest of the sample, were more likely to report that the child had experienced hard bowel movements was reported for more than one-half of children with 4 (67.7% vs 50.9%), frequent hard bowel movements (29.0% encopresis. When considered together, these studies vs 14.3%), and painful defecation (41.9% vs 27.9%). Of the suggest a strong association between constipation children who experienced both STR and hard bowel and toilet training difficulties. However, all of those movements, 93.4% demonstrated constipation before the studies were cross-sectional and retrospective. onset of STR. In that group, parents reported hard bowel Therefore, they are subject to potential recall bias, movements at almost one-half of all follow-up telephone and the direction of the association cannot be deter- interviews before the onset of STR. Of the children who mined. The association could be interpreted as indi- experienced both STR and painful defecation, 74.4% ex- cating that children with constipation are more likely perienced the first episode of painful defecation before to develop toilet training problems or that children the onset of STR. Children with frequent hard bowel movements demonstrated a longer duration of STR (9.0 with toilet training problems are more likely to de- -vs 4.8 ؎ 3.0 months). velop constipation. To better understand the rela 6.5 ؎ Conclusions. When hard bowel movements or pain- tionship between constipation and STR, we prospec- ful defecation is associated with STR, the first episode of tively evaluated whether hard bowel movements constipation usually occurs before the STR. The fact that and painful defecation are most likely to occur before hard bowel movements frequently occur before the onset the onset of STR or after the onset of STR. METHODS From the *Division of Child Development and Rehabilitation and ‡Division of Gastroenterology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Sample Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and §Pedi- The sample and design of this study were described previous- atric Physicians of Burlington County, Lumberton, New Jersey. ly.5,6 Briefly, families of 408 consecutive 17- to 19-month-old chil- Received for publication Nov 12, 2003; accepted Jan 13, 2004. dren from the private pediatric practice of one of us (B.T.) were Address correspondence to Nathan J. Blum, MD, Children’s Seashore asked to participate in a study designed to investigate factors House of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3405 Civic Center Blvd, related to toilet training. Parents of 406 children gave written Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: [email protected] informed consent to participate in the study. Children with global PEDIATRICS (ISSN 0031 4005). Copyright © 2004 by the American Acad- developmental delays or structural abnormalities of the spinal emy of Pediatrics. cord, genitourinary tract, or gastrointestinal tract were excluded. e520 PEDIATRICS Vol.Downloaded 113 No. 6 from June www.aappublications.org/news 2004 http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/ by guest on September 25, 2021 e520 Three hundred eighty children (93.6%) were monitored until they STR. Children with STR demonstrated increased in- developed STR or completed daytime toilet training. Twenty-five cidences of ever having hard bowel movements, fre- families were lost to follow-up monitoring or ceased participation in the study before either of these end points was reached, and 2 quently having hard bowel movements, and having families were lost to follow-up monitoring after the development painful bowel movements, compared with children of STR but before the completion of daytime toilet training. One who did not develop STR (Table 1). child was removed from the study because of global developmen- We examined when in the toilet training process tal delays that were not apparent at the time of enrollment. The constipation occurred among the children who de- pediatric practice is in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area Ͼ and serves predominately middle- and upper middle-class fami- veloped STR (Table 2). We found that 90% of the lies. More than 90% of the families are white, and the mean Ϯ SD children had their first hard bowel movements be- Hollingshead score7 was 52.4 Ϯ 10.8, which is near the top of fore developing STR, and Ͼ70% had painful bowel social strata IV of the 5-category index. The study was approved movements before developing STR. by the institutional review board of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We were interested in determining whether these were single episodes of hard bowel movements or Study Design represented a more persistent problem with consti- The investigation was designed to study an intervention to pation. In most cases of children with hard bowel prevent STR. The intervention involved providing to parents an movements and STR, the parents reported hard instructional sheet that recommended increased praise for defeca- bowel movements in multiple follow-up telephone tion and not referring to stool in negative terms (eg, stinky). The calls before the child developed STR. In this group, intervention was described in more detail previously6 and was not successful in decreasing the incidence of STR. Because there was parents reported hard bowel movements in 48.5% of no difference in the incidences of STR between the group that the follow-up telephone calls, on average, before the received the intervention and the group that did not, only data onset of STR. Forty percent of the parents reported from the whole sample are reported here. Demographic data were hard bowel movements occurring at least once per obtained at enrollment. Follow-up telephone interviews were con- week during a period before the development of ducted every 2 to 3 months until the parents reported at 2 con- secutive interviews that the child had completed daytime toilet STR. In addition, children who had frequent hard training. bowel movements before the onset of STR demon- Information obtained in follow-up interviews included the fol- strated a much longer duration of STR (Table 3). lowing: whether the child was urinating on the toilet or potty almost always, sometimes, or never and, if almost always, how DISCUSSION many accidents per week the child had; and whether the child was having bowel movements on the toilet or potty almost always, This study confirms previous studies that indi- sometimes, or never and, if almost always, how many accidents cated a strong association between constipation and the child had had in the past month. Separate questions were STR. It extends those findings by demonstrating that, asked about hard bowel movements and painful bowel move- in most cases, hard bowel movements and, to a lesser ments; parents were asked whether these occurred never, once or twice, about once per week, or more than once per week since the extent, painful bowel movements occur before the last interview. onset of STR and thus are unlikely to be caused We categorized children’s hard bowel movements in the fol- primarily by the STR behavior. Moreover, the con- lowing ways. Children whose parents never reported a hard stipation was reported at multiple interviews in bowel movement in any follow-up telephone call were catego- rized as never having hard bowel movements.