ArticleBMC medical education2026
A BOPPPS-structured narrative medicine intervention to enhance empathy and reduce ageism among undergraduate nursing students.
Article in BMC medical education, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRapid population aging has intensified the complexity of gerontological nursing care, highlighting the need for educational approaches that foster empathy and reduce ageist attitudes among nursing students. Narrative medicine has been proposed as a humanistic pedagogy to enhance perspective-taking; however, its integration within structured instructional models in nursing education remains underexplored.
objectiveThis study aimed to describe within-cohort changes in empathy and ageist attitudes among undergraduate nursing students following participation in a narrative-medicine module structured using the BOPPPS instructional framework, and to examine the association between these two constructs.
methodsA quasi-experimental, one-group pretest-post test design was employed in a compulsory undergraduate nursing course. A total of 120 nursing students participated. Empathy was measured using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Student version, and ageism was assessed using the Chinese version of the Fraboni Scale of Ageism. Paired-samples t tests were used to examine pre-post changes, and correlation and exploratory regression analyses were conducted to summarize associations between empathy and ageism.
resultsMean empathy scores increased from pre-test to post-test (mean difference = 0.45, 95% CI [0.33, 0.57]; t = 7.18, p < 0.001), while mean ageism scores decreased (mean difference = - 0.40, 95% CI [- 0.53, - 0.27]; t = - 6.02, p < 0.001), reflecting small-to-moderate effect sizes. Post-intervention empathy was moderately and negatively associated with ageism (r = - 0.42, p < 0.001). Exploratory regression analysis indicated that empathy accounted for a modest proportion of variance in ageist attitudes (B = - 0.34, p < 0.001).
conclusionsThese findings describe modest within-cohort changes and associations observed following a narrative-based instructional module delivered within a structured teaching framework. Given the one-group pre-post design and the compulsory course context, results should be interpreted cautiously due to predictable threats to internal validity, including testing and maturation effects. The proposed CARE-AGE framework is therefore presented as an evidence-informed conceptual curriculum model rather than a validated intervention. The study contributes descriptive insight into how theory-guided narrative pedagogy may be situated within gerontological nursing education.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.