2.3. Intervention and Follow-Up
Warfarin-treated
Patients began taking warfarin after undergoing valve surgery. Based on a previous study and clinical practice in China [Intervention (social app care): In the social app group, patients were asked to register and use an approved WeChat miniprogramme named Warfarin Helper, which helped to manage their warfarin therapy. The miniprogramme mainly had the following four functions, as shown in Control (routine care): patients who were assigned to the routine care group received traditional warfarin management. Warfarin-treated patients were asked to independently visit their local hospitals to monitor their INRs and receive dose adjustments. These patients were asked to give or send us their INR reports when they visited our centre for rehabilitation examinations every three to six months.The algorithm recommended that the dose be calculated on a weekly, rather than daily basis because the recommended dose changes were small and difficult to achieve with daily dosing [