The management of constipation in hospital inpatients

摘要

Patients' concepts of constipation vary from not passing any stool for days to difficulty in evacuation, passing small pellety stools or a sense of incomplete evacuation. Sometimes patients may complain of diarrhoea as a result of constipation with overflow. The clinical definition of functional constipation is based on symptoms defined by the Rome criteria {Table 1) (Longstreth et al, 2006) which should be present for 12 weeks of the previous year and in more than one in four evacuations (Thompson et al, 1999). However, in hospital, clinicians tend to be guided by patients' complaints as well as nursing observations. This review will focus on the factors leading to constipation in hospitalized patients and its management.