Outcome of preventive interventions on the prevalence of constipation in hip fracture patients admitted in orthopaedic ward of a tertiary care hospital in eastern India

Background: Orthopedic patients admitted with hip fractures are prone to developing constipation due to pain and immobility in bed. The reported incidence for constipation in orthopaedic patients varies from 44 % after thoracolumbar fusion surgery to 18-72% after hip replacement surgery to 39-43%. Methods: This study was conducted for the admitted patients with hip fracture in orthopaedic ward of a tertiary care hospital. The study period was divided into first 3 months where prevalence was measured while administering the present standard nursing care, without any active preventive interventions and next 3 months where the prevalence was measured after adding implementation of active preventive interventions. Results: The study had 78 % incidence of constipation in the former group compared to 26 % in intervention group. This was found to be significant statistically. Conclusions: It was safely concluded that implementation of our preventive intervention protocol in all our admitted patients with hip fractures the prevalence of constipation could be significantly reduced