Currently accepted at: JMIR Nursing
Date Submitted: Aug 20, 2025
Date Accepted: Jun 3, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/82679
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
WeChat-Based Nursing Interventions in Women's Mobile Health: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mobile health (mHealth) technology offers new approaches to improve women’s health by providing personalized monitoring and real-time guidance. However, as one of China’s most influential social media platforms, WeChat’s use in women’s mHealth remain lacking.
Objective:
To comprehensively collect and analyze research on WeChat-based mHealth applications for women, and identify research gaps and future trends.
Methods:
Searches were conducted in IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials between January 2011 and December 2024. Data on study characteristics, intervention methods, and outcomes were extracted. Bibliometric analyses were conducted using VOSviewer and Incites to analyze publication trends, institutional collaborations, and research hotspots.
Results:
The analysis included 41 studies from China, published between the years 2017 and 2024, involving 10,743 participants. Interventions included WeChat groups (n=26), official accounts (n=21), and applets (n=7), used for disease management, health education, and real-time communication. Most studies focused on gestational diabetes mellitus (n=7), prenatal care (n=7), and breast cancer (n=5). Eight studies involved multidisciplinary teams to enhance comprehensive care. Publication volume increased after 2018, peaking in 2021 and 2024. Seventy-four institutions contributed to this field, with Xi'an Jiaotong University leading in citations (n=81). Zhang M.Y., Ma L.K., and Li M.J. were the most productive authors (2 papers each).
Conclusions:
WeChat demonstrates considerable potential in improving access to personalized health information, enhancing self-management, and facilitating real-time doctor-patient communication. This is the first comprehensive review to explore the effects of mHealth interventions via WeChat on women. It fills a research gap and provides directions for optimizing WeChat-based mHealth interventions for women. This work streamlines navigation for researchers from different disciplines, and offers valuable insights to newcomers, pointing them towards promising research opportunities. Clinical Trial: Not applicable.
Citation
