Abstract Objective To conduct a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of creative story therapy versus routine nursing alone for the treatment of dementia. Methods We manually searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China VIP Database (VIP), China Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), and Wanfang Data up to May 2023. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of creative story therapy combined with routine nursing versus routine nursing for the treatment of dementia were included. Results A total of 597 participants were enrolled in the 9 RCTs. Among them, 296 were in the creative story therapy group, and 301 were in the routine nursing group. We found statistically significant effects of creative story therapy combined with routine nursing on cognitive function [standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.99, 95% CI 0.57, 1.41, P