Background: Providing nutrition to seriously unwell patients in the Intensive Care Unit
(ICU) is a crucial and complex aspect of their care. It is believed that abdominal massage will stop
the distention, vomiting, and reducing residual gastric volume. Aim: To identify the effect of
abdominal massage on enteral nutrition tolerance among patients on mechanical ventilation.
Design: To accomplish the goal of this study, quasi-experimental research design (study and control
group) was used. Setting: This study was carried out in the critical care unit of Benha University
Hospital in Qalyoubia, Egypt. Subjects: A purposive sample of 80 patients on mechanical
ventilation who were divided into study & control (40 for each one). Three tools were used to
collect the data, tool I: Patients personal and medical data. Tool II: Abdominal massage technique.
Tool III: Enteral nutrition assessment. Results: Compared to the control patients, a gastric residual
was found at the conclusion of the monitoring days. On the sixth day, only 7.5% of the study group
had gastric residual, with a mean volume of 3.1 ml. In contrast, 52.5% of the control group had
gastric residual, with a mean volume of 25.6 ml, demonstrating a highly significant difference at p
value |
