Asma Sikandar, Syeda Maryam Wasif, Mohsin Zaheer, Sarwat Nazir, Aasia Noor, Nadia Zafar Khan, Ahsan Numan.
Prevalence of Constipation in Healthy Population.
Esculapio J Services Inst Med Sci Jan ;15(1):91-3.

Objectives: To assess prevalence of constipation in healthy population, study was done at hospital employees and students at PGMI/General Hospital, Lahore. Material and Methods: This was an observational study done at random population including students, hospital employees and university students. All subjects were given set of questions which include 4 constipation related symptoms,1 - frequency of bowel movements on a scale of 0 - 4 ,2 - difficulty or painful evacuation effort on a scale of 0-4 , 3 -Assistance required to evacuate and 4 - Duration of symptoms. 1-Frequency of bowel movement on a scale of 0-4 2-Difficulty or painful evacuation effort on a scale of 0-4 3-Assistance required to evacuate. 4-Duration of symptoms. Total score was 15 of which 7 was the cut of score, people reporting score 7 and above were considered as constipated while below 7 were healthy non-constipated. Results: Total 778 healthy individuals (clinically) interviewed. The age range was between 10year to 60 year old.66% participants were female whereas 34% were male. According to set of questions 14% participants reported constipation. Conclusion: Constipation is a common complaint but poorly defined clinical constellation, the definition of constipation is different among studies, where most studies are based on a questionnaire and may result from organic condition .Overall, prevalence of constipation in adults has been estimated as 16% worldwide which is very close to our finding of 14% of healthy population reporting constipation, Demographics of subjects of most of 14% are female and above 55 years of age.

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