Comparison of Intermittent and Bolus Feeding on Pulmonary Aspiration in Patients With Sepsis, Hospitalized at Intensive Care Units: A Triple Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Nutrition is a basic human need and a great challenge at intensive care units. Studies have shown that unsuitable nutrition can be a risk factor for many complications including aspiration.
The purpose of this study was to compare two methods of bolus and intermittent feeding on aspiration in patients with sepsis, hospitalized at intensive care units.
This study was a triple blind randomized controlled trial that was performed on 60 patients with sepsis, hospitalized at the intensive care units of Chamran Hospital, Tehran, Iran, for three days, during years 2015 and 2016. Patients were divided to three groups (bolus feeding, intermittent feeding and control). Methylene blue solution was used to evaluate pulmonary aspiration of the patients. Therefore, aspiration was emphasized with suctioning of the respiratory tract and assessing lung secretions in terms of blue color of methylene blue solution. The SPSS (version 22) software was used to analyze the data.
The Kruskal-Wallis test indicated no significant difference between groups in terms of frequency of aspiration in three days (P>0.05). Friedman and Cochran tests also showed no significant difference in pulmonary aspiration during the three consecutive days in each of the groups (P>0.05).
Discussion and The present study showed no significant difference among the three groups (bolus feeding, intermittent feeding and routine) in terms of aspiration. More studies with larger sample sizes during longer period are suggested.