The abstract is the last thing you write and the first thing your reader sees. It must stand completely alone — a reader who only reads the abstract should understand what problem you addressed, how you addressed it, what the evidence showed, and what you concluded. Every sentence does specific work. There is no room for vague openers, repetitive phrasing, or throat-clearing.
Does your capstone require an abstract?
Not all nursing capstone programs require an abstract. Check your specific rubric. Programs that require abstracts typically specify:
- Whether it should be a structured abstract (with labeled headings: Background, Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusion) or an unstructured abstract (continuous prose)
- The word limit (most commonly 150–250 words for student papers; some DNP programs allow up to 350)
- Whether the abstract appears on its own page or immediately after the title page
- Whether keywords are required below the abstract
If your program does not explicitly require an abstract, do not add one — it will create confusion about whether it is part of your page count and may look like you are padding the paper.
APA 7th edition abstract format
APA 7th edition abstract page requirements
- Page placement: abstract appears on its own page, immediately after the title page, before the introduction
- Heading: the word "Abstract" centered, bold, at the top of the page — no other formatting (no italics, no underline)
- Paragraph format: the abstract itself is a single paragraph — no indentation for the first line (unlike body paragraphs, which are indented)
- Length: 150–250 words for student papers; check your program's specific requirement
- No running head: APA 7th student papers do not use running heads — this is a change from APA 6th
- Keywords: if required, appear on a new line below the abstract, formatted as: Keywords: (italicized, not bold) followed by the keywords in lowercase, separated by commas
- No citations: do not cite sources in the abstract. The abstract reports on your paper, not on others' work directly
- No new information: every claim in the abstract must be supported somewhere in the paper
The structured abstract: section-by-section
A structured abstract uses labeled headings to organize its content. Each heading governs 1–3 sentences. Here is what each section must accomplish:
| Section | What it must say | Approximate sentences |
|---|---|---|
| Background | Why this problem matters — scope, incidence, impact on patient outcomes or nursing practice. Establish significance quickly with a specific statistic if possible. | 1–2 |
| Purpose | The purpose of this project and your PICOT question or project aim. Be specific — "to improve hand hygiene compliance" is too vague; "to evaluate the effect of a structured real-time feedback protocol on hand hygiene compliance among medical-surgical RNs in a 32-bed inpatient unit" is specific. | 1–2 |
| Methods (or Approach) | How you conducted the evidence review — search databases used, search terms, inclusion/exclusion criteria, number of sources reviewed and included. For implementation capstones: the theoretical framework applied and the type of project (EBP implementation, QI, program evaluation). | 2–3 |
| Results (or Findings) | What the evidence showed — 2–3 key findings from your literature review that directly support your proposed intervention. State the strength of the evidence if notable (e.g., "two Level I systematic reviews found..."). | 2–3 |
| Conclusion | What you recommend and why it matters — the proposed intervention and its expected impact; implications for nursing practice; one sentence on limitations or future research. | 2–3 |
Complete annotated example abstract
The following is a complete structured abstract for a hypothetical RN-BSN capstone on fall prevention in a medical-surgical unit. Each sentence is annotated to show what work it does.
Patient falls represent the most common adverse event in acute care settings, affecting approximately 700,000 to 1,000,000 hospitalized patients annually in the United States and resulting in injuries that range from minor bruising to fatal intracranial hemorrhage (AHRQ, 2023). [Sentence 1: scope + severity — two statistics in one sentence to establish significance efficiently.] Despite widespread implementation of universal fall precautions, fall rates on medical-surgical units remain elevated at 3.0 to 5.0 falls per 1,000 patient-days, suggesting that current interventions are insufficient for high-risk populations. [Sentence 2: the gap — why current practice is not enough, which is the reason the project exists.]
The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to evaluate the effect of a structured individualized fall risk assessment protocol using the STRATIFY tool on fall rates and fall-related injuries among adult patients aged 65 and older on a 36-bed medical-surgical unit. [Single sentence, highly specific — includes the intervention, the tool, the outcome, and the population.]
A systematic literature search was conducted using CINAHL, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library, using the search terms "fall prevention," "STRATIFY," "nursing assessment," and "acute care," limited to peer-reviewed publications from 2018 to 2024. [Databases, terms, and date range — the three elements readers need to evaluate the search.] Eleven primary studies meeting inclusion criteria were critically appraised using the Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt levels of evidence hierarchy. [Number of sources + appraisal method.] The Iowa Model of Evidence-Based Practice guided the project design and implementation framework. [Theoretical framework.]
The evidence consistently supported individualized risk assessment as superior to universal precautions for reducing falls in high-risk older adults. [Overall finding — one synthesis sentence before specific findings.] Two Level I systematic reviews demonstrated fall rate reductions of 24–36% in units using structured risk-stratified protocols compared to universal fall precautions alone (Hempel et al., 2020; Oliver et al., 2021). [Strongest evidence cited directly — Level I with specific effect sizes.] Three additional Level II RCTs reported significant reductions in injurious falls when individualized care plans were paired with real-time nursing education on high-risk patient characteristics. [Supporting evidence — quantity and design level.]
Implementation of the STRATIFY risk assessment tool with individualized care planning is supported by strong evidence and is feasible in the proposed unit with available nursing staff, existing EHR infrastructure, and a 12-week implementation timeline. [The recommendation with feasibility framing.] Adoption of this protocol is expected to reduce fall rates by an estimated 20–30% and improve nursing confidence in fall risk identification. [Expected impact — quantified where possible.] Limitations include the relatively short implementation window and the absence of a controlled comparison group; future research should examine long-term sustainability and generalizability across unit types. [Limitations + future research in one sentence.]
Note: the citations above (AHRQ, 2023; Hempel et al., 2020; Oliver et al., 2021) are illustrative examples. Use your actual sources.
What to omit from the abstract
- Background sentences that don't add significance: "Nursing is an important profession" or "Patient safety has long been a concern in healthcare" — these waste word count on statements that establish nothing new.
- Methodology detail beyond search strategy: the abstract is not where you describe PDSA cycles, stakeholder matrices, or implementation timelines in depth. Save those for the paper.
- Quotes: abstracts never use direct quotations — paraphrase.
- Hedged conclusions: "the evidence may possibly suggest that perhaps fall prevention interventions could be beneficial" is not a conclusion. State what the evidence shows and what you recommend.
- Abbreviations not defined in the abstract: if you use an abbreviation, spell it out on first use even in the abstract (EBP = evidence-based practice; STRATIFY = Standardized Assessment for Fall Risk in Inpatient Settings).
Write the abstract last — always
The abstract summarizes the finished paper. Students who write the abstract first and then write the paper frequently end up with an abstract that does not accurately reflect what is in the paper — the project scope shifts, the evidence changes, the conclusion evolves. Write the abstract after the paper is complete and approved by your faculty advisor. Budget 30–45 minutes to write it carefully; despite being short, it is one of the most-read parts of your capstone.
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Frequently asked questions
At 150 words, each section gets roughly 2–3 sentences total. The most efficient cuts: (1) Background — one sentence only, with your strongest statistic; (2) Methods — collapse databases and terms into a single sentence; save word count for Findings and Conclusion where the intellectual work is; (3) Results — report the two strongest evidence findings only; (4) Conclusion — one sentence for the recommendation, one for the implication or limitation. Do not pad Background at the expense of Results and Conclusion — those sections are what makes the abstract valuable to a reader deciding whether to read the full paper.
APA 7th edition does permit citations in the abstract when the work is directly relevant and the reader needs to know the source. However, most nursing capstone faculty prefer abstracts without citations (or with very minimal citations for landmark studies or specific tools). Overloading the abstract with citations uses precious word count on attribution that belongs in the body of the paper. As a practical rule: include a citation only when the specific source is essential to understanding the claim — for example, citing the STRATIFY tool's validation study if you name the tool. For general statistics (fall rates, hospital-acquired infection rates), cite in the introduction and omit the citation from the abstract.
Keywords are terms that indexing systems (CINAHL, PubMed, Google Scholar) use to categorize your paper so others can find it in literature searches. For a student capstone, keywords are selected to reflect: (1) the population (e.g., "older adults," "medical-surgical nursing"), (2) the intervention (e.g., "fall prevention," "STRATIFY tool"), (3) the outcome (e.g., "patient falls," "fall-related injury"), and (4) the approach (e.g., "evidence-based practice," "nursing quality improvement"). Use 3–5 keywords. List them in lowercase unless they are proper nouns, separated by commas, on a new line below the abstract text, with Keywords: in italics followed by a colon. Do not use abbreviations as keywords unless they are universally recognized (EBP, PICOT).