Prevalence, Symptoms, and Associated Factors of Chronic Constipation Among Older Adults in North-East of Peninsular Malaysia

Patimah Abdul Wahab, Dariah Mohd Yusoff, Azidah Abdul Kadir, Siti Hawa Ali and Lee Yeong Yeh

Clinical Nursing Research, 2022, vol. 31, issue 2, 348-355

Abstract: This study aimed to determine the prevalence, symptoms, and associated factors of chronic constipation among older adults in the North-East of Peninsular Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was conducted among older patients from four health clinics. A total of 400 older patients participated, with a mean age of 68.7 ( SD  = 6.4) years. The prevalence of chronic constipation was 14.8%. The highest symptom reported was the inability to pass stool (98.3%). Chronic constipation was significantly associated with older age (OR = 2.97; 95% CI [1.17, 7.54]; p  = .022), inadequate plain water intake per day (OR = 2.13; 95% CI [1.13, 4.02]; p  = .020), hypertension (OR = 2.22; 95% CI [1.07, 4.61]; p  = .033), and hyperlipidemia (OR = 2.52; 95% CI [1.24, 5.11]; p  = .010). Identification of chronic constipation should be done as part of routine clinic visits, especially for older patients with cardiovascular disease.

Keywords: prevalence; constipation; Malaysia; older adult (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10547738211033934 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:clnure:v:31:y:2022:i:2:p:348-355

DOI: 10.1177/10547738211033934

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Clinical Nursing Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().