Background The emotional challenges experienced by parents of infants admitted to the neonatal unit are well documented. Stories based on parents’ narratives can be an effective method for nursing students to learn about parents’ experiences and develop empathy for them.

Aim To explore the contribution of arts-based digital storytelling based on parental experiences of neonatal care to enhancing empathy in children’s nursing students.

Method A collection of digital stories based on parental narratives were developed using the ASPIRE (aim, storyboarding, population, implementation, release, evaluation) framework. A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate the effects of three of those digital stories, whereby 67 children’s nursing students completed questionnaires and seven of them were interviewed individually about the stories.

Findings The mix of illustrations, animation, voice and text was well received by participants, not only aiding their learning, but also eliciting an emotional response from them. However, some aspects of the digital stories were found to hinder learning and some participants questioned the power of digital stories. Despite this, overall, the use of digital storytelling was found to be engaging, hold students’ interest and enable learning via their senses.

Conclusion Arts-based digital storytelling can convey the complexities of parents’ emotional experiences in the neonatal unit, so that nursing students are better equipped to understand and empathise with them.