An extended assessment of bowel habits in a general population

Table 1 Four-week daily diary (Patients giving yes-no responses and number of bowel movements/day were recorded)

Questions	Time
FIRST WEEK	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Bowel movements (number/day)
Straining at defecation
Feeling of incomplete defecation
and/or difficult evacuation
Manual manoeuvres
Lumpy or hard stools
Use of laxatives
SECOND WEEK	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Bowel movements (number/day)
Straining at defecation
Feeling of incomplete defecation
and/or difficult evacuation
Manual manoeuvres
Lumpy or hard stools
Use of laxatives
THIRD WEEK	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Bowel movements (number/day)
Straining at defecation
Feeling of incomplete defecation
and/or difficult evacuation
Manual manoeuvres
Lumpy or hard stools
Use of laxatives
FOURTH WEEK	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Bowel movements (number/day)
Straining at defecation
Feeling of incomplete defecation
and/or difficult evacuation
Manual manoeuvres
Lumpy or hard stools
Use of laxatives

Table 2 Distribution for age and sex of population under in-vestigation n (%)

years	Women	Men	Total
< 20	3 (1.8)	3 (2.2)	6 (2)
21-30	32 (19.6)	39 (28.9)	71 (23.8)
31-40	59 (36.2)	32 (23.7)	91 (30.5)
41-50	22 (13.5)	21 (15.6)	43 (14.4)
51-60	21 (12.9)	20 (14.8)	41 (13.8)
61-70	19 (11.7)	13 (9.6)	32 (10.7)
> 70	7 (4.3)	7 (5.2)	14 (4.7)

Table 3 Defecatory frequency and defecation-related variables in our population sample (data are expressed as mean ± SD)

Sex	No. of	Straining	Feeling of incomplete	Manual help	Lumpy/hard	Use of
	defecations/	at stool/	emptying/defecation	for evacuation/	stools/defecation	laxatives/day
	day	defecation		defecation
Total	1.00 ± 0.4	0.06 ± 0.1	0.06 ± 0.15	0.0090 ± 0.07	0.07 ± 0.2	0.07 ± 0.2
Men	1.03 ± 0.34	0.05 ± 0.13	0.03 ± 0.09	0.0008 ± 0.001	0.06 ± 0.2	0.02 ± 0.1
Women	0.97 ± 0.4	0.12 ± 0.21	0.09 ± 0.2	0.0170 ± 0.09	0.08 ± 0.2	0.09 ± 0.2
P (between sexes)	n.s.	0.001	0.0001	0.046	n.s.	0.001

Table 4 Correlations among bowel habits

	Bowel	Straining	Incomplete/difficult	Manual	Lumpy/hard	Laxatives
	mov/day		evacuation	manoeuvres	stools
Bowel movements (per day)	1	-0.365a	-0.246b	-0.123b	-0.218b	-0356b
Straining		1	0.562b	0.293b	0.592b	0.416b
Incomplete/difficult evacuation			1	0.327b	0.558b	0.273b
Manual manoeuvres				1	0.303b	0.233b
Lumpy/hard stools					1	0.300b
Laxatives						1

^bP < 0.01.