Nursing Interventions to Promote Normal Bowel Elimination

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Nursing Interventions to Promote Normal Bowel
Elimination

• Heather Nelson, RN

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Promoting Regular Defecation

• The nurse can help the patient achieve regular
  defecation by attending to
• Privacy
• Timing
• Nutrition and fluids
• Exercise
• Positioning

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Privacy

• The nurse should provide as much privacy as
  possible to patients to whom privacy during
  defecation is important.
• Provide patient with water, washcloth, or towel
  if the patient desires to clean himself after
  defecating.

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Timing

• Patients should be encouraged to defecate when
  the urge to defecate is recognized.
• Provide time for the patient to defecate. Do not
  interfere with defecation time with other
  activities.
• Do not hurry patients. Give patients adequate
  time to defecate.

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Nutrition and Fluids

• The diet a patient needs for regular defecation
  varies.

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Nutrition and Fluids

• For constipated patients
• Increase fluid intake. Instruct the patient to
  drink fruit juices, especially prune juice.
• Include fiber in the diet with foods such as
  prunes, raw fruit, bran products, and whole-grain
  cereals and bread.

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Nutrition and Fluids

• For patients with diarrhea
• Encourage intake of fluids and food.
• Eating small amounts of bland foods can be
  helpful, since they are more easily absorbed.
• Encourage the ingestion of food or fluids
  containing potassium, since diarrhea can lead to
  great potassium losses.
• Avoid excessively hot or cold fluids and highly
  spiced foods and high fiber foods that can
  aggravate diarrhea.

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Exercise

• Regular exercise helps clients develop a regular
  defecation pattern and normal feces.
• Ambulation helps to stimulate normal motility,
  and therefore should be encouraged in
  post-surgical patients.

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Positioning

• Patients who are confined to bed may need
  assistance to sit on a bedpan.
• Assist patients to the bedside commode or toilet
  if needed.
• Use elevated toilet seats to help patients who
  have difficulty in raising themselves from the
  toilet.
• Make sure that the patient has the call light
  accessible so he or she can call for assistance.