Abstract

Introduction: Bowel feeding is an effective and safe method for patients who are admitted to intensive care wards but despite its many benefits has side effects such as respiratory aspiration. Pneumonia caused by aspiration is responsible for 15-20% of hospital infections, 24% increase in length of hospitalization, and 39% increase of expenses. It is one of the ten reasons of death in USA that can be prevented by appropriate method of feeding.

Objective: This study aims to determine the chance of respiratory aspiration in intermittent bolus tube feeding in patients admitted to ICU and trauma wards.

Methods: In this quasi- experimental study 36 patients admitted to ICU and trauma wards were fed by intermittent tube bolus method, for 3 days. Each time 150-300cc food liquid was administered for 7 times a day every 3 hours to patients with a 60 cc syringe in 10-15 minutes. In order to measure the respiratory aspiration, 0.5 cc methylen blue 1% was added to 500 cc of each meal. In case of patient's need for suction, when the blue color of methylen blue was observed in patients secretion they appeared to have respiratory aspiration.

Results: Data analysis showed that respiratory aspiration occurrence in bolus method was 5.6%.

Conclusion: According to results, it is obvious that bolus method as mentioned in texts is still the standard method and risk of respiratory aspiration decreases if it is used properly.

Keywords: Respiratory aspiration, Tube feeding, Intermittent bolus method