SynthesisScientific reports2026
The effect of narrative medicine-based education on academic performance and humanistic communication in residency training: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Scientific reports, 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
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Our study aims to assess the effect of narrative medicine education on academic performance and humanistic communication. We performed a PRISMA guideline-based systematic review and meta-analysis. The literature was searched in PubMed, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP database and Wanfang database up to January 26, 2026. Two independent reviewers performed the study selection, data extraction and quality assessment. We included 20 studies with 1,364 residents. Meta-analyses showed that compared with lecture-based learning (LBL), the application of narrative medicine was associated with significantly improved procedural skill (SMD = 0.98, 95% CI 0.42 to 1.53), humanistic care ability (SMD = 2.62, 95% CI 0.26 to 4.99), empathy ability (SMD = 1.51, 95% CI 0.76 to 2.26), and doctor-patient communication (SMD = 2.19, 95% CI 0.21 to 4.17). Our study also showed that residents were more satisfied with the narrative medicine education than LBL (OR = 6.67, 95% CI 1.74 to 25.51). In conclusion, this is the first meta-analysis to show that narrative medicine may potentially improve the procedural skills and humanistic communication compared with LBL. However, given the substantial heterogeneity and low-certainty evidence, our findings are insufficient for strong practice recommendations. Further high-quality studies are needed to validate these findings. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420261323721 .
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.