The impact of distance education on readmission of patients with heart failure: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Aim To estimate the effect size of distance education on the readmission of patients with heart failure. Design This study was a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Method Both Persian and English interventional studies focused on investigating the effectiveness of any form of distance education interventions on the readmission of patients with heart failure were retrieved from the main databases: Embase, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, SID, and Google Scholar. Two independent teams screened the articles for eligibility. The Cochrane Risk of bias tool was implemented to evaluate the studies' quality. A random‐effects model was applied to pool the effect sizes, I 2 was calculated to examine heterogeneity, and Meta‐regression was used to investigate the source of heterogeneity. The proposal was registered in the PROSPERO database (no. CRD42020187453). Results Articles 8836 were retrieved, and 11 articles were selected. Nine studies investigated the effect of distance education on readmission with <12‐month follow‐up (RR: 0.78 [95% CI 0.67–0.92]) and the I 2 of 0.00%; and four studies examined the effect of distance intervention on readmission with 12‐month or more follow‐up (RR: 0.89 [95% CI 0.73–1.09]) and the I 2 of 71.59%.