Authors (including presenting author) :
Ho KWE(1), Tai KK(2), Chan SWA(3)
Affiliation :
Ward S11B, M&G Department, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
In literature reviews, constipation has shown to be a fall risk in elderly group patients, the underlying cause of acute retention of urine and delirium. The prevalence of constipation is also high. Implanting early screening tools can tackle the underlying cause of admission diagnosis; in term of shortening the length of hospitalization for patients. As a result, resources used for prolonged hospital stay can be reduce. A pilot enhancement program for patients with constipation problem is setup.
In my working unit, nurses are having too much focus in patients’ acute medical problem. Second, nurses fail to alert doctors that patient has problem of constipation upon admission. Thirdly, nurses have failed to interpret the data of BO in the fluid balance chart / temperature chart from the patients.
Objectives :
1.) To have early detection of constipation.
2.) To promote overall well-being of patient and decrease patients’ length of stay in hospital
3.) To screen for underlying cause of admission secondary to constipation
Methodology :
The program is set up with two parts: Early Screening and Education. In early screening, a sentence for asking, “whether patient has bowel open in recent three days”, is added under the FTOCC screening paragraph. The sentence can facilitate nurse to have early screening for patients’ constipation problem and inform doctors promptly. In education, nurses were invited to join a lecture with topics of constipation. Pre- and post- tests have done to test nurses’ knowledge for constipation related topics.
Result & Outcome :
The number of patients of constipation has dropped from 106 patients to 25 patients, which is around 75% in reduction. On the other hand, nurses’ knowledge towards topic of constipation has 60.1% improvement.
