The evaluation of functional constipation in patients who receive hemodialysis treatment

The aim of the descriptive study was to evaluate the case of functional constipation in 60 patients receiving hemodialysis treatment in a hemodialysis unit. the consents of the patients and the approval from the ethical committee and the hemodialysis Unit were obtained prior to the study. The data of the study were collected via the survey, Constipation Severity Scale, and Bristol Stool Form Scale. The Constipation Severity Scale is a measurement tool that consists of three subscales and its total score ranges from 0 to 73. Increase in scores correlates with the severity of constipation. The Bristol Stool Form Scale is designed to classify the form of stool into seven categories (type 1 and 2: Constipation, type 3 and 4: Normal, type 5,6,7: Diarrhea). Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis and Pearson's chi-squared tests were used to evaluate the data. p<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. It was found that 38.3% of the patients were at the age of 66 and above, 33.3% received hemodialysis treatment due to hypertensive nephropathy and 96.6% received hemodialysis treatment three times a week. It was also noted that 53.3% of the patients skipped a meal, 78.3% did not exercise, 48.3% experienced constipation, 25% pain during defecation, 36.7% difficulty in evacuating stool, 8.3% bleeding and 76.7% did not report these problems to the healthcare professionals. According to the Bristol Stool Form Scale, it was found that 28.4% of the patients had constipation, the mean of the Constipation Severity Scale total score was 23.7±13.5, the Obstructive Defecation subscale was found as 12.9±7.0, Colonic Inertia subscale was 8.7±4.6, and pain subscale was 2.0±3.2. In addition, a relationship was found between the items such as the defecation frequency, experiencing difficulty, pain, bleeding, swelling during defecation, the feeling of incomplete defecation and the Constipation Severity Scale total score (p<0.05). According to the result obtained, the evaluation of functional constipation and implementation of nursing initiatives to prevent constipation in hemodialysis patients can be recommended.