You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 12, Issue 4
  • Review: high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of laxatives for functional constipation in children is limitedCommentary

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Treatment
Review: high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of laxatives for functional constipation in children is limited

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.12.4.107

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Question

    Are laxatives and dietary measures effective for functional constipation in children?

    Review scope

    Included studies compared osmotic, bulk-forming, stimulant or emollient laxatives, lubricating agents, or dietary measures with placebo, no treatment, or alternative treatments in children ⩽18 years of age who had functional constipation. Exclusion criteria included studies of children with psychiatric disease, organic constipation, exclusively non-retentive faecal incontinence, or mental handicap. Outcomes included treatment success (defined by individual studies) or defecation frequency.

    Review methods

    Medline and EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (to Dec 2007) and reference lists were searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs), comparative clinical trials (CCTs), or crossover studies. 28 studies (n = 1912, duration of follow-up 2 d to 12 mo) met the selection criteria: …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding not stated.