Having patients chew gum is an effective way to improve abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting and the intake adherence of patients in colonoscopy preparation, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Here are three insights:
1. Researchers randomly allocated patients into two groups — a gum-chewing group and a control group.
2. The gum-chewing group was asked to chew one stick of sugarless gum during the pause interval of drinking the polyethylene glycol solution.
3. The gum-chewing group reported significantly lower abdominal discomfort, nausea and vomiting and took a shorter time to ingest the polyethylene glycol solution than the control group.