Trial Information

Improving Bowel Preparation for Colonoscopy With a Simple Educational Card

Despite written instructions, many patients do not understand the importance of bowel
preparation as they prepare for colonoscopy. This often leads to poor compliance with
preparation protocol and therefore inadequate bowel preparation. Our goal is to include a
simple educational card which will hopefully improve the quality of bowel preparation by
providing a visual component with the preparation instructions. This card will stress the
importance of drinking the entire bowel preparation and provide representative images of a
dirty and clean colon. We will specifically target patients directly booked for screening
colonoscopy (those without a pre-procedure office visit). In a randomized fashion, patients
in the control group will receive the standard bowel preparation instructions and patients
in the intervention group will receive the educational card along with the standard bowel
preparation instructions. The primary outcome will be the endoscopist's assessment of the
quality of preparation using a standardized bowel preparation scale. Secondary outcomes will
include the number and types of polyps found, colonoscope insertion and withdrawal time, and
patient satisfaction with the procedure.