Neurogenic bowel management after spinal cord injury: Malaysian experience

To describe the bowel programmes utilized by individuals with spinal cord injury; and to determine the association between the outcome of the bowel programmes and various interventions to facilitate defecation.

A cross-sectional study.

Individuals with spinal cord injury who have neurogenic bowel dysfunction.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a self-constructed questionnaire that consisted of: (i) demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants; (ii) interventions to facilitate defecation; (iii) bowel care practices; (iv) outcome of the bowel programme (incidence of incontinence and duration of the evacuation procedure); and (v) participant satisfaction with their bowel programme.

The majority (79.2%) of subjects used multiple interventions for bowel care. Duration of the evacuation procedure was more than 60 min in 28.0% of participants. Water intake of more than 2 l/day was associated with longer duration of bowel care. Only 8.0% of participants had at least one episode of incontinence per month. The majority of participants (84.8%) were satisfied with their bowel programme.

Patients used multiple interventions to manage their bowels and spent a substantial amount of time performing bowel care. Nevertheless, the incidence of incontinence was low and satisfaction with their bowel programme was high.