Primary outcome measureConstipation

Primary outcome measure
Constipation Scoring System. Both groups’ CSS
scores decreased from Week 0 to Week 4 (Table 2,
Figure 4), indicating an improvement in constipation
symptoms; however, the massage group improved significantly
more than the control group (mean difference
between groups in score change 5.0 (SD 1.5), 95% CI
8.1, 1.8; t¼3.28, df¼28, p¼0.003). There was no
difference between groups in CSS score improvement
between Week 0 and Week 8 (mean difference between
groups in score change 1.6 (SD 1.5), 95% CI 5.6,
0.6; t¼2.64, df¼28, p¼0.112) (Table 3).