Self-management of peripherally inserted central catheters after patient discharge via the WeChat smartphone application: A systematic review and meta-analysis

WeChat is a smartphone application that may help patients self-manage peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC), although additional data are needed regarding this topic. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine whether WeChat helped improve PICC-related complications, self-care ability, PICC maintenance dependency in that the behavior of a patient is in compliance with a doctor’s order or a will, knowledge mastery, and satisfaction among patients with a PICC. The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China Biology Medicine, China national Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Wiper, and Baidu Scholar databases were searched to identify related reports that were published up to April 2018. This search revealed 36 reports that were published during 2014–2018, including 2,623 controls and 2,662 patients who used the WeChat application. Relative to the traditional follow-up group, the group that received WeChat follow-up had a lower risk of PICC-related complications (odds ratio [OR]: 0.23, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.19–0.27, P P P P P