ABSTRACT
Objective To study the effect of scenario case based learning for nurse-patient communicationon empathy of un-dergraduate nursing students. Methods The undergraduate nursing students who had completed the basic nursing courses and the course of"communication in nursing"were enrolled as participants.Seventy-two students recruited in 2013 were assigned as the control group,where only individual guidance was given before taking examination;while eighty-nine students recruited in 2014 as the inter-vention group,where a self-compiled Collection of Scenarios for Nurse-Patient Communication was given when they were preparing for the final examination and the students were required to give their own communication plans based on the scenario cases from the collec-tion.The two groups were compared in view of empathy. Result The intervention group were better in empathy ability assessment, with statistically significant difference (P<0.001). Conclusions The scenario case based learning for nurse-patient communication makes up for the shortcomings of traditional teaching methods.It encourages nursing students to think from the patients'perspective and improves the empathy ability of students.