AAPA Attends Bowel Incontinence Meeting
Many patients are embarrassed and uncomfortable talking to their clinicians about bowel incontinence. But according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the issue is more common than most people realize. Prevalence of fecal incontinence ranges between 1 and 7.1 percent in otherwise healthy people and up to 25 percent in those who are institutionalized.
AAPA recently participated in the Bowel Incontinence Awareness Campaign Planning Meeting convened by NIDDK. The idea of the meeting was to develop ways to raise awareness of the issue among different audiences and develop ways to better prepare clinicians to address the issue with their patients.
At the meeting, AAPA helped provide input into the types of materials that might be created — especially for primary care providers — including toolkits, information pieces, brochures, and online resources, which would help clinicians better understand the problem and provide their patients with more information and support. Once the campaign is developed, AAPA will promote bowel incontinence information to members.
For more information on bowel incontinence, including patient education material, go to the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) Web site.
For more information on NIDDK, go to www2.niddk.nih.gov.
