Table 3.

Effect of regular use of groups of laxatives

Laxatives	Normal bowel function n = 108 (59.0%)	Altered bowel function n = 75 (41.0%)
Osmotically acting laxatives only	59 (64.8%)	32 (35.2%)
Contact laxatives only	16 (55.2%)	13 (44.8%)
Bulk only	2 (100.0%)	0 (0%)
Enemas only	2 (66.7%)	1 (33.3%)
Softeners/emollients only	2 (33.3%)	4 (66.7%)
Combination of laxatives	27 (51.9%)	25 (48.1%)

The results are given as number of participants with proportion (%) in brackets.

There were no significant differences between the effect of the groups of laxatives (exact chi-square test p = 0.36)