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                                                  CONTACT:Katherine Jackson

              BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IS RECOMMENDED AS PART OF
             TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN'S PANTS-SOILING PROBLEMS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA., March 12-- A treatment program that includes 
behavioral therapy can considerably benefit children who have a chronic 
problem with soiling their pants, according to a four-year National Institutes 
of Health study conducted at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center.
	Encopresis, or involuntary pants-soiling by children, is often 
confused with diarrhea.  It is a result of various problems, including spasms 
of the anus, constipation, fear of having a bowel movement and struggles with 
parents over toileting. 
	"While laxative therapy treats the constipation, it doesn't address 
these other factors, and therefore, is not a complete treatment," said Daniel 
J. Cox, director of U.Va.'s behavior medicine center.   "If encopresis 
sufferers are not better after two weeks of laxative therapy, behavioral 
therapy should become a part of the treatment plan," Cox said. 
	According to the study, approximately 20 percent of the children 
responded to the laxative therapy alone, while 70 percent responded to a 
combination of laxatives and behavior therapy. 
	Behavior therapy taught the children when and how to go to the 
bathroom to have a bowel movement, and provided a schedule and encouragement 
to do so. The addition of behavior therapy to laxative therapy did not add 
additional time in treatment, since children who received laxative therapy 
alone on average met with their doctors four times, while the children who 
received laxative plus behavior therapy met with doctor an average of three 
visits.   Children who were going to eventually fail either treatment could 
be identified after only two weeks of treatment.
            Cox, along with Dr. Stephen Borowitz, associate professor of 
pediatrics; Dr. William D.Ling, assistant professor of psychiatry; and 
Dr. James Sutphen, associate professor of pediatrics, examined children 
between the ages of 6 and 15 during the study. They evaluated 90 children 
suffering from encopresis and 70 children without the problem.  The volunteer 
participants were given psychological tests and physical examinations, and 
were evaluated 12 months to determine treatment benefits.   
	The study results were presented at the annual meeting of the American 
Psychosomatic Society in Williamsburg, March 12.
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                                                         March 11, 1996