earticle

영어

This study aimed to assess whether gum chewing affects bowel motility, including time to first passage of flatus, time to first feces, time to tolerance of oral fluid, and length of hospi-tal stay after laparoscopic colorectal surgery. The current study had a non-equivalent con-trol group and non-synchronized design. Sixty-four patients who underwent laparoscopic colorectal surgery were assigned to either a gum chewing group (n = 32; experimental group) or a control group (n = 32). The patients in the experimental group chewed gum for 1 hour, 3 times a day, until they passed gas. Chewing gum led to significant differences in the first passage of flatus (t = 7.716, p < .001) and feces (t = 2.216, p = .030), time to toler-ance of oral fluid (t = 4.404, p < .001), and length of hospital stay (t = 2.829, p = .006) between groups. This research concluded that chewing gum can be a useful intervention to shorten the time to the first passage of flatus and feces as well as to reduce the time to tol-erance of oral fluid and length of hospital stay.