The effect of narrative medicine-based education on academic performance and humanistic communication in residency training: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This systematic review and meta-analysis examined whether integrating narrative medicine into residency education improves both clinical competence and humanistic communication compared with traditional lecture-based learning. Following PRISMA guidelines, the authors analyzed 20 studies involving 1,364 medical residents from multiple databases. The findings demonstrated that narrative medicine education significantly enhanced procedural skills, empathy, humanistic care abilities, doctor–patient communication, and overall learner satisfaction. These results suggest that reflective storytelling, patient narratives, and narrative-based educational practices may strengthen residents' technical performance while fostering more compassionate, patient-centered care. However, the authors note that the included studies showed substantial heterogeneity and the overall certainty of the evidence was low, limiting the strength of clinical recommendations. They conclude that narrative medicine is a promising educational approach for residency training but emphasize the need for larger, higher-quality studies to confirm its effectiveness and guide implementation.