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Does It Matter How Hard Your Poop Is?

December 28, 2017 7:04 am

A recent study (MH Vriesman et al. J Pediatr 2017; 190: 69-73) with 1835 children examined the issue of stool consistency, comparing the Bristol Stool Scale (BSS) and the Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrontestinal Symptoms-Rome III (QPGS-RIII). Most of the patients in this study were older children, with 803 (43.7%) age 8-12 years and 1032 (56.3%) ≥13 years.

Key findings:

Surprisingly (to me) there only slight agreement between BSS and QPGS-RIII for assessing stool consistency (κ = .046; P=.022).
With the BSS, hard stools (types 1 & 2) were reported more frequently than QPGS-RIII: 18.0% vs. 7.1%.
Both scales reported similar levels of functional constipation, 9.3% for BSS and 8.6% for QPGS-RIII. The presence of hard stools or painful defecation is only 1 of 6 Rome criteria for the diagnosis of functional constipation.

These results indicate significant variability in how often pediatric patients considered their stools hard based on the instrument (BSS vs QPGS-RIII). The reason why there is fairly close agreement on functional constipation is due to the fact that Rome III criteria combine the presence of hard stools and painful defecation into a single criteria and the fact that there are multiple criteria needed. “Not all children with hard stools have painful defecation and vice versa, with only 21% of children with painful defecation reporting hard stools.”

My take: This study suggests that painful defecation is more important to ascertain than if the stools are hard. In addition, this may explain why softening the stools as a stand alone strategy is not effective in many children.

Related study: S Muddasani et al. J Pediatr 2017; 190: 74-8. This retrospective study showed that pelvic floor physical therapy was effective in the majority of children (n=64,mean age 8.7 yrs) with fecal incontinence due to pelvic floor dyssynergia. It is notable that there were only two physical therapists involved; thus, in order to replicate these results, one would need quite capable PTs.

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