Bowel preparation effectiveness: inpatients and outpatients.

This study describes colon visibility and case cancelations of patients taking self-administered outpatient colonoscopy preparation or inpatient preparation at a large north central Texas hospital. The convenience sample of 120 adult patients who were scheduled for a colonoscopy ranged in age from 25 to 88 years. A 33-item investigator-developed questionnaire was used to record patient demographics, type of bowel preparation, signs and symptoms, and colon visualization score obtained during the procedure. On the basis of the visualization scores, there was no significant difference between the outpatient self-administered bowel preparation and the inpatient preparation administered in the hospital setting. There were clinical findings indicating that specific preparation solutions had a slightly higher incidence of nausea or vomiting. Additionally, an opportunity for documentation improvement was identified and reported to the nursing documentation committee for further investigation.