Parents of Children With Constipation Will be Asked About Their Views on Their Children's Physical Activity.

December 9, 2025 updated by: Vastra Gotaland Region

Parents' Experiences of Physical Activity in Their Children With Functional Constipation - A Qualitative Interview Study

Children with functional constipation are a large patient group that not only needs to seek care at primary healthcare centers and pediatric clinics, but many of the visits received at the emergency department are related to symptoms of constipation. The personal suffering, physically and psychologically, affects not only the child but the entire family. After the patient has started their medical treatment and received information regarding the diagnosis and dietary advice, healthcare today does not have much more to offer. The physiotherapist has currently no natural part in the team around children with constipation. Regular physical activity is recommended but lacks support in science. Physical activity has been shown to have a good effect, such as stimulating bowel movements, reducing constipation, and improving gut microbiota, in other diagnoses from the gastrointestinal tract such as irritable bowel syndrome. From a physiological perspective, physical activity is good for bowel motility; however, there is a lack of studies that can show evidence that physical activity could alleviate symptoms in functional constipation. The purpose of interviewing parents about their experiences of physical activity in their children with functional constipation is to gain a deeper understanding of physical activity in their children. Parents of 12 to15 children with functional constipation will be collected at two different pediatric clinics in Sweden to participate in the study. The method will be semistructured individual, in-depth, interviews that are transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Both the manifest and the latent message will be analyzed. The result of this qualitative study can lead to generating new and increased knowledge about children with functional constipation and their physical activity, which can fill a knowledge gap as there is sparse previous research in the area. Knowledge from the planned study could be valuable in the long run to improve care for children with functional constipation and could lead to the physiotherapist becoming part of the team around children with functional constipation. The result from the study could also be used as a basis for future studies in the area.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

15

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

  • Name: Peter Nordqvist, Physiotherapist
  • Phone Number: +46 (0)70-5682443
  • Email: bollen82@hotmail.com

Study Locations

  • Sweden
      • Alingsås, Sweden, 44133
        • Recruiting
        • Närhälsan, Sörhaga Rehab
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

N/A

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Parents of children with functional constipation are being recruited for the study, from two diffrent sites in western Sweden.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Parents of children aged 6-12 years who have functional constipation.
  • Are registered at a pediatric and adolescent medicine clinic in Alingsås or Lerum due to functional constipation and are undergoing treatment for functional constipation.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Does not speak or write Swedish.
  • The parent should not have impaired cognitive ability.
  • The child should not have another illness/injury that could affect the ability to be physically active.
  • The family should not have had the supervisor as a therapist.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
To explore parents' perspectives on physical activity in children suffering from functional constipation
Time Frame: Nov 25- April 26
Qualitative semi structured individual in-depth interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Fifteen parents of children with functional constipation are being recruited for the study.
Nov 25- April 26

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Vastra Gotaland Region

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 14, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 9, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 9, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

December 23, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 23, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 9, 2025

Last Verified

December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2025-06087-01

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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