Association of WeChat-based transitional care with quality of life and recurrence in patients with acute pancreatitis: A retrospective matched cohort study.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the association of WeChat-based transitional care with quality of life and recurrence in patients with acute pancreatitis (AP).

METHODOLOGY: This retrospective study included clinical data from 164 AP patients treated at The First People's Hospital of Linping District, Hangzhou from July 2023 to June 2024. Of them, 82 patients received WeChat-based transitional care after discharge (observation group). In addition, a control group of 82 patients with AP who received conventional standard care from June 2022 to June 2023 was selected and matched with the observation group at a 1:1 ratio according to sex and age. The Chinese version of the Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) was used to assess patients' quality of life and the 1-year recurrence rate.

RESULTS

At six months after discharge, the scores of all dimensions of the SF-36 in both groups were significantly higher than those before intervention, and the scores of all dimensions in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05). After one year of follow-up, the observation group had a lower recurrence rate than the control group [11.0% (9/82) vs. 24.4% (20/82), P < 0.05]. The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the recurrence-free survival time in the observation group was longer than that in the control group (χ2 = 4.829, P = 0.028).

CONCLUSIONS

WeChat-based transitional care was associated with better quality-of-life outcomes and a lower recurrence rate in patients with AP. Given the retrospective matched design, these findings should be interpreted as preliminary associations and require confirmation in future prospective studies.