PURPOSE
The purposes of this study were to develope and evaluate a constipation intervention program for inpatients. METHOD: To develope this program, Six phases were processed including the organization of team, the analysis of medical chart, the development of tentative constipation intervention program, the test of content validity, the test of clinical validity and the determination of final constipation intervention program. To evaluate the clinical validity of this program, 10 subjects who were in the C University Hospital were selected from March, 2001 to October, 2001. RESULT: The clinical validity was supplied by the pilot test, showing the potential effect of the program. Based on the validity results the final algorithm and the form of nursing record for this program which consist of the 3-step assessments and the intervention protocol were presented in this study. CONCLUSION: The advantage of this program is being able to assess and manage constipation simultaneously and is especially effective to patients who are at risk for developing constipation during their admission. Further study needs are also necessary to evaluate the effect of this program on the self-symptom of constipation.
E-SUBMISSION
