Association between oral feeding intolerance and quality of life in acute pancreatitis: A prospective cohort study.

Objective: Oral feeding intolerance (OFI) is a common complication of nutritional management in acute pancreatitis (AP) and is associated with significantly worse clinical outcomes and increased cost of treatment. However, changes in patient-reported outcomes associated with OFI during AP and effect of OFI on quality of life (QoL) have, to our knowledge, never been studied. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between OFI and QoL in patients with AP.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of patients with AP. Patients were grouped according to whether they developed OFI during hospitalization. QoL was recorded daily during hospitalization and at 1 and 4 wk after discharge. One-way analysis of covariance and repeated measures analysis were conducted. P < 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant.

Results: The study included 131 patients with AP. Fifty-two (40%) developed OFI during hospitalization. Overall QoL was significantly impaired in the OFI group (mean difference = -16.1; 95% confidence interval, -24.4 to -7.8; P ≤ 0.001). Five individual domains-physical limitations, psychological function, sleep, pain, and visceral function-were significantly impaired in the OFI group during hospitalization. Overall QoL improved significantly within each group from hospitalization to follow-up (P < 0.001) with no significant difference between the two groups at follow-up (mean difference = -2; 95% confidence interval, -7.1 to 3.2; P = 0.449).

Conclusions: QoL is significantly impaired in patients with AP who develop OFI. Nutritional management of acute pancreatitis needs to be optimized to prevent the occurrence of OFI.