A patient receiving enteral tube feedings may develop to diarrhea. Diarrhea can negatively affect a patient's quality of life and may indicate the need to modify the prescription for nutritional replacement.
Factors that may contribute to diarrhea:
(1) concurrent medications
(2) volume of enteral feeding
(3) rate of delivery of the enteral feedings
(4) osmotic load of the enteral feeding
(5) ability of bowel to absorb (short bowel, malabsorption)
(6) length of functional bowel
(7) concurrent causes of diarrhea, including Clostridium difficile disease
(8) bacterial contamination of enteral feeding fluid
(9) allergy to a component of the feeding
Fecal features associated with recognition of diarrhea
(1) frequency
(2) consistency
(3) quantity
(4) offensive features (odor, etc)
Since the term diarrhea may be ambiguous to different groups, an attempt should be made to quantify it and to describe occurrence relative to enteral tube feedings.
