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Incidence of constipation among critically-ill patients

Constipation is a common complaint among critically ill patients. A prospective study was conducted to find out the incidence of constipation among 50 critically-ill patients admitted in l.C .U.s of D.M.C & H, Ludhiana, Punjab. Follow up of the subjects ranged between 7-21 days with the mean follow up of 13.54±4.31 days. Each patient was followed daily from admission till discharge or three weeks and total 720 observations were made. It was found that 60% of critically-ill patients were constipated . Out of 720 observations, in 59.17% observations patients reported presence of bowel movements with soft (36.25%), hard (13.05%) and watery (9.86%) consistency, whereas bowel movements were absent in 40.83% observations. However, bowel sounds were present in 93.88% of the observations. The incidence of constipation was found higher in age group of 15-35 years (84.61 %) which was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05) . Males (62.50%), unmarried (83.33%) and urban dwellers (60.71 %) have also reported higher incidence of constipation but that was not found statistically significant (p>0.05).