The nurse is preparing the client who has peptic ulcer disease for discharge to home. Which does the nurse include in client teaching about testing stool for occult blood?

Question

1. Positive results are indicative of active bleeding.
2. Poultry and fish are necessary to eat before testing.
3. Each stool specimen provides one sample for testing.
4. The menstrual cycle postpones testing for occult blood.

Answer 1

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4. When the client is menstruating, testing for occult blood is ineffective because the test does not discriminate between menstrual blood and occult blood from the ga-strointestinal tract. The nurse instructs the client to wait until blood flow ceases, pro-vide self-care of perineum, and then test for occult blood.
1. Positive results indicate the presence of blood but do not distinguish between new or old blood. The nurse observes the stool to assess the blood's age more accurately because active bleeding tends to be bright red, whereas old blood is dark red. How-ever, if the active bleeding occurs in the stomach, meaning the blood should look bright red, the blood in the stool will look old (dark) because the blood ages as it tra-vels through the gastrointestinal system.
2. The client does not have to eat fish or poultry before testing but avoids red meat because it potentially increases the redness of stool.
3. Each stool specimen provides two samples for testing.