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Prevalence of constipation in patients undergoing chemotherapy and the effect of constipation on quality of life

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Abstract

Objective

This study was conducted as a descriptive and cross-sectional study to determine the prevalence of constipation and the impact of constipation on quality of life in patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy.

Materials and methods

The data of the study were collected from 252 patients who applied to the outpatient chemotherapy unit of a university hospital between January 2021 and March 2021. The data were collected using the “Patient Information Form,” “Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) Performance Status Scale,” “Constipation Severity Scale (CSS),” “Patient Assessment of Constipation Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAC-QOL),” and “The Bristol Stool Form Scale” through face-to-face interview technique. In the analysis of data, numbers, percentile distributions, minimum and maximum values, mean values, and standard deviations, as well as t-test, were used in the comparison of paired groups in normally distributed measurements, while the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in the comparison of more than two groups.

Results

The constipation prevalence of the patients included in the study was 31.7% and the mean constipation severity score was 30.48 ± 13.87. It was found that the quality of life of the patients due to constipation was (71.79 ± 18.74) impacted adversely on a moderate level. A significant difference was found between sex, educational status, use of antiemetic and antiulcer medication, presence of hemorrhoid disease, ECOG score, appetite, and mean CSS and PAC-QOL scores (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Constipation occurs in one-third of cancer patients receiving ambulatory chemotherapy. The severity of constipation in patients is at a moderate level and it impacts the quality of life moderately.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nursing Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Turkey

    Zeynep Pehlivan

  2. Nursing Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey

    Nesrin Nural

Authors
  1. Zeynep Pehlivan
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  2. Nesrin Nural
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Nesrin Nural, Zeynep Pehlivan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Zeynep Pehlivan and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zeynep Pehlivan.

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Ethics approval

Ethical approval was obtained from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Non-Interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee (2021/42), and institutional permissions were obtained from hospital administrations to start the study. All information was collected in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Pehlivan, Z., Nural, N. Prevalence of constipation in patients undergoing chemotherapy and the effect of constipation on quality of life. Support Care Cancer 30, 8019–8028 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07244-7

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