Nursing Resources: Finding Articles

The new EBSCO interface for CINAHL defaults to the Advanced Search, where you can organize your search in three boxes. Use the AND, OR, NOT connectors as appropriate. You can also select from the Filters options to better focus your search.

You can also access the full range of filters from your results screen by clicking on the Filters button, which opens up a list of filters.

Make use of these helpful filters and limiters:

peer reviewed (article has been reviewed by experts in the field before being accepted for publication)

research (an article that reports the results of a research study which will include the purpose of the study, methodology, and results)

first author is a nurse (remember that this database includes allied health, therefore some articles are written by professionals in fields allied to nursing)

any author is a nurse

in the Document Type Box -- journal article

in the Geographic Subset Box -- USA (searches for journals published in the USA)

Search Options gives you the option to change the search mode, although for most searches Proximity (Boolean phrase) searching is to be recommended. Under Expanders the default is to search equivalent subject terms, but you also have the option to select "Apply related words." If you are still not getting the results you expect, you can select "Also search within the full text of articles." This can be useful if you are looking for very specific information.

SOME TIPS:

The Ovid platform contains five distinct databases, make sure you are on USC Upstate Full Text Nursing & Allied Health Journals@Ovid to search for scholarly journal articles. You can click "Change" to change to any of these other databases:

• USC Upstate Nursing & Allied Health Books@Ovid,
• Joanna Briggs Institute Evidence Based Practice Database
• Ovid's version of MEDLINE
• Ovid Nursing Database, containing a broader range of journal citations from Ovid and MEDLINE.

The name of the database you are searching is over the top of the search box. Under the search box are two boxes that by default are checked. The "Include Related Terms" box is useful because it expands your search to include synonyms and related terms to your keywords.

Open up the Limits tab to find more ways to limit your search. This is where you can limit the date range of your search by entering years for Publication Year.

To limit your search to specific types of articles related to evidence-based practice:

• Choose the Multi-Field Search,
• Enter your keywords for your topic, arranging them in the search boxes, and selecting the proper connectors (And, Or, Not)
• Select the Document Type field for the last search box and enter one of the following document types: systematic review, meta analysis, clinical and case study, cohort study, qualitative study, research article.

The JBI Evidence-Based Practice Database is one of the databases using the Ovid interface. It defaults to the Multi-Field Search, which allows you to organize your search into multiple boxes and to choose different fields to search at the same time.

• Open the Limits tab to designate publication year or a range of years, Publication Type, or Subject Node.
• Unless you need a specific type of document, it is recommended to search first for Recommended Practices, which synthesize information and can lead to systematic reviews and other types of documents.
• For more information on publication types and subject nodes, consult the link at the bottom of this page.

This screen shot shows how your search results are displayed.

• Note you can modify them on the left side.
• The type of document is specified under the title.
• Click on the title to see full information about the source.
• The PDF full text file is linked on the right side.

The Joanna Briggs Institute, based at the University of Adelaide, Australia, collaborates with 70 institutions worldwide to "promote and support the synthesis, transfer and utilization of evidence through identifying feasible, appropriate, meaningful and effective healthcare practices to assist in the improvement of healthcare outcomes globally."

MEDLINE is a large citation database of the biomedical journal literature produced by the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Institutes of Health. It contains over 25 million references, most to scholarly journal articles. MEDLINE is the primary component of PubMed, the freely available database provided by the NCBI. MEDLINE Ultimate is a version produced by EBSCO, using the EBSCO searching interface and providing full-text links for many articles.

While the interface is similar to CINAHL, MEDLINE has its own set of filters and limiters, so it is worth looking through them to find ways to focus your search. There is no longer a limiter for Nursing under Journal & Citation subset.

Although you can search PubMed Central (PMC) directly, links to full-text articles in PMC are included in results in PubMed. While there is an overlap with MEDLINE, there are also a number of non-MEDLINE journals in PMC.

The PMC record includes the citation under the journal banner. Note that the journal  name is abbreviated and is followed by the volume, issue, and page numbers and the DOI number. The title of the article follows with the author(s). Next follows the Abstract and finally the text of the article in HTML format. If alternate formats such as PDF are available, you will find a link at the top right of the record.