Purpose: The assessment of bowel habit is important in the management of patients with colorectal disease. There is not an ideal and practical bowel habit scoring system. The current scores have been designed only for a subclass of patients having a particular disorder. Furthemore, they are complex and time consuming. We propose a simple score to quickly assess the bowel function in all patients with proctological disorders.
Methods: We developed a bowel habit scoring system including three parameters: bowel frequency, stool consistency, and urgency. A three-point scale was applied. Three main categories of bowel habit were derived: slow (3-4 points), normal (5-6 points), and quick (7-9 points). We applied this score to all patients undergoing colorectal visit in outpatient office between January 2014 and December 2015.
Results: Eight hundred and ninety patients were included. In 819 patients (92 %), the score was completed. The mean time to assess the score was 28 s (range 12-80 s). The mean age was 49.2 years (range 14-93). The males were 435 (53.1 %). Two hundred and forty patients (29.3 %) had "slow", 521(63.6 %) had "normal", and 58 (7.1 %) had "quick" habit. Patients with constipation or fissure had higher incidence of slow habit compared with all other patients (60.5 vs 25.2 %, P < 0.05; 42.8 vs 17.2 %, P < 0.05). Patients with incontinence or inflammatory bowel disease had higher incidence of quick bowel habit compared with all other patients (72.7 vs 5.7 %, P < 0.05; 28.5 vs 5.6%, P < 0.05).
Conclusions: This bowel habit score is easy and quick to apply with high rate of feasibility. It could be useful to manage patients with colorectal disorders.
Keywords: Anal incontinence; Bowel function; Bowel habit; Constipation.