Monitoring Food Images After Rectal Surgery To Accelerate Recovery Of Postoperative Bowel Motility: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Objective: Considering the role of nurses in the postoperative care of patients, simple nursing interventions can prevent gastrointestinal motility problems. This study aimed to assess the impact of viewing food images on the recovery of intestinal motility after surgery in patients who were operated for rectal cancer.
 Methods: This quasi-experimental study was carried out with 48 patients who underwent rectal surgery in the general surgery clinic of a university hospital in Türkiye from May 2016 to December 2018. The control group had 25 participants and the experimental group had 23. From the first morning after surgery until defecation, patients in the experimental group were asked to monitor food pictures thrice a day, parallel to their meals. 
 Results: In the experimental group, patients’ first flatus (3.30 ± 1.52, day) and defecation time (4.91 ± 1.27, day) were significantly shorter compared with the first flatus (4.28 ± 1.64, day) and defecation time (5.84 ± 1.40, day) of the control group (respectively; p = 0.037, p = 0.027). 
 Conclusion: Monitoring food images supports the cephalic phase and could be a nursing intervention to speed up intestinal functions by increasing the release of gastrointestinal hormones and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. To accelerate bowel motility after rectal surgery, displaying the food images to the patients is a very simple intervention with low risk and cost and nurses should use it in the care of the patients who underwent surgery because of rectal cancer. It is recommended that further studies examining the effectiveness of monitoring food images on gastrointestinal surgeries should be performed.