Effect of Abdominal Massage on Patients in Intensive Care Unit

Karadeniz Technical University

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Abdominal Massage; Intensive Care Unit Patients; Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation

Treatments: Other: abdominal massage

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06950580

2025/10

Details and patient eligibility

About

Bowel motility can be affected by many factors such as immobilization, lack of fiber in the nutritional formula, inadequate fluid intake, and lack of privacy for toileting in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit. Abdominal massage, which is one of the effective methods to increase intestinal motility, is accepted as an intervention that can be safely applied in patients.

The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of abdominal massage applied to patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit on sepsis, survival, discharge time from intensive care unit, amount and duration of antibiotic use.

Hypotheses H0: Abdominal massage application has no effect on sepsis, survival, discharge time from intensive care unit, amount and duration of antibiotic use in patients hospitalized in intensive care unit.

H1: Abdominal massage application has an effect on sepsis, survival, discharge time from intensive care unit, amount and duration of antibiotic use in patients hospitalized in intensive care unit.

In this randomized controlled study, the data of patients who received abdominal massage for 5 days during routine physiotherapy applications and those who did not will be recorded. Randomization will be performed in a 1:1 ratio using a computer generated randomization schedule. The effect of abdominal massage on sepsis, survival, discharge time from intensive care, amount and duration of antibiotic use will be examined by using the data of 2 groups with and without abdominal massage in a randomized controlled trial.

Enrollment: 128 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients aged between 18 to 80 years
• Patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit for more than 3 days
• Body Mass Index less than 30 kg/m²
• Patients who are not mobilized out of bed
• Patients without any intervention contraindicating abdominal massage

Exclusion criteria

• History of abdominal surgery
• Active gastrointestinal bleeding
• Patients discharged from ICU within less than 5 days after enrollment

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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128 participants in 2 patient groups

Abdominal Massage Group

Experimental group

Description:

In addition to routine physiotherapy, patients will receive abdominal massage daily for 5 days.

Treatment:

Other: abdominal massage

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Routine physiotherapy will be continued for patients in this group.