ABSTRACT
The use of enteral nutrition in critically ill patients in an increasingly common technique which is presenting greater indications and benefits. Our objective is to quantify and evaluate gastrointestinal complications following the use of enteral nutrition in patients admitted into our unit. A prospective study was performed during one year, in 152 patients admitted into our service who were fed with enteral nutrition by probe for 4 or more days, using our enteral nutrition protocol. The complications recorded were: Abdominal distension, increase of gastric residuum, vomits or regurgitation, diarrhoea, constipation and broncho-aspiration of the diet. From the results obtained we point out that gastric residuum was the most common complication followed by constipation, whereas diarrhoea, abdominal distension and broncho-aspiration are very infrequent. We concluded than when complications associated to enteral nutrition appear, the are very frequent and tend to appear more than once. Our enteral nutrition protocol guarantees a correct feeding of patients with a low failure rate.
