Consistency between auscultation and ultrasound in determining the number of intestinal peristalsis, inter-nurse consistency in auscultation assessment of the number of recorded intestinal peristalsis

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the agreement between auscultation and ultrasound in determining the number of bowel peristalsis, assess the inter-nurse consistency in evaluating recorded bowel peristalsis via auscultation, and identify the influencing factors. Material and Methods: This methodological study was conducted between 01.09.2022-31.12.2024.The study population consisted of patients presenting to the gastroenterology outpatient clinic with complaints of bowel disorders and 10 nurses working in the gastroenterology ward. The sample included 184 patients, determined via G-Power analysis, and 10 nurses working in the gastroenterology ward. Data were collected using the Patient Bowel Peristalsis Monitoring Form and the Nurse Data Collection Form. The data were analyzed using descriptive and correlation analyses in IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. Ethical approval and institutional permissions were obtained for the study. Results: The agreement between auscultation and ultrasound in determining the number of bowel peristalsis was analyzed using the ICC method, which revealed a concordance of 0.86–0.89. The mean age of the nurses was 30.5±11.25 years; 86% were female, and 14% were male. All nurses held a bachelor's degree. Inter-nurse consistency in evaluating recorded bowel peristalsis via auscultation was analyzed using Krippendorff's Alpha, which was found to be above 0.80, indicating good reliability. Similarly, the agreement between the researcher nurse and the other nurses in evaluating recorded bowel peristalsis via auscultation also showed a Krippendorff's Alpha value above 0.80, indicating good reliability. The ICC value for less experienced nurses was highest at 0.93, while it was 0.91 for experienced nurses. A negative correlation was found between the number of recorded bowel sound auscultations and the absolute difference, suggesting that increased listening resulted in closer readings among nurses. Conclusion: The agreement between auscultation and ultrasound in determining the number of bowel peristalsis was found to be good across all quadrants. The reliability of evaluations between the researcher nurse and other nurses for recorded bowel peristalsis via auscultation was determined to be good. The agreement among less experienced nurses was higher compared to experienced nurses. The results suggest that as nurses performed more auscultations (progressing through the patient list), their assessments became more precise, accurate, and consistent, based on the researcher nurse's auscultation results as a reference.