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OBJECTIVE	Physicians adopt evidence-based guidelines with variable consistency .
OBJECTIVE	Narratives , or stories , offer a novel dissemination strategy for clinical recommendations .
OBJECTIVE	The study objective was to compare whether evidence-based narrative versus traditional summary improved recall of opioid prescribing guidelines from the American College of Emergency Physicians ( ACEP ) .
METHODS	This was a prospective , randomized controlled experiment to compare whether narrative versus summary promoted short-term recall of six themes contained in the ACEP opioid guideline .
METHODS	The experiment was modeled after the free-recall test , an established technique in studies of memory .
METHODS	At a regional conference , emergency physicians ( EPs ) were randomized to read either a summary of the guideline ( control ) or a narrative ( intervention ) .
METHODS	The fictional narrative was constructed to match the summary in content and length .
METHODS	One hour after reading the text , participants listed all content that they could recall .
METHODS	Two reviewers independently scored the responses to assess recall of the six themes .
METHODS	The primary outcome was the total number of themes recalled per participant .
METHODS	Secondary outcomes included the proportion of responses in each study arm that recalled individual themes and the proportion of responses in each arm that contained falsely recalled or extraneous information .
RESULTS	Ninety-five physicians were randomized .
RESULTS	Eighty-two physicians completed the experiment , for a response rate of 86 % .
RESULTS	The mean of the total number of themes recalled per participant was 3.1 in the narrative arm versus 2.0 in the summary arm ( difference = 1.1 , 95 % confidence interval [ CI ] = 0.6 to 1.7 ) .
RESULTS	For three themes , the proportion of responses that recalled the theme was significantly greater in the narrative arm compared to the summary arm , with the differences ranging from 20 % to 51 % .
RESULTS	For one theme , recall was significantly greater in the summary arm .
RESULTS	For two themes , there was no statistically significant difference in recall between the arms .
RESULTS	In the summary arm , 54 % of responses were found to contain falsely recalled or extraneous information versus 21 % of responses in the narrative arm ( difference = 33 % , 95 % CI = 14 % to 53 % ) .
CONCLUSIONS	Physicians exposed to a narrative about opioid guidelines were more likely to recall guideline content at 1 hour than those exposed to a summary of the guidelines .
CONCLUSIONS	Future studies should examine whether the incorporation of narratives in dissemination campaigns improves guideline adoption and changes clinical practice

