| خلاصه مقاله | Enteral tube feeding (ETF) is the ideal technique of nutrition support for patients who cannot orally meet their nutritional requests and energy. Patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), usually receive ETF during their stay, but ETF method is not without difficulties. One of the ETF problems is diarrhea, with reported prevalence between 2% to 68%. Diarrhea is defined as an increase in stool rate of at least ≥ 3 formless stools every day above baseline. Diarrhea in seriously ill patients can have upper occurrence up to 95%. ETF is increasingly used in hospitals because of its suitability, helpfulness, safety and conformity to physiological styles. Studies have revealed that enteral feeding reduces in flowing of toxins from the intestinal tract to the circulation, keeps the integrity of gastrointestinal mucosa so decreases the prevalence of organ dysfunction and sepsis caused by pathogen bacterias such as E.coli and clostridium difficile, and is related with a reduced time of stay in the hospital and reduced mortality. Diarrhea can expose menace to the life such as bacterial infection and intestinal ischemia, representing 4%–5% of the cases. Different formulations of ETF can decrease the occurrence of diarrhea. As showed by researches, the supplementation of fiber in the ETF increases epithelial cells regeneration and the absorption of electrolytes in the colon, reduces the gastric emptying rate then decreases the incidence of diarrhea. Findings suggest that diarrhea in ETF patients is associated with many risk factors and varies between seriously ill patients. |