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cinahl - Searching

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About the CINAHL databases

CINAHL stands for Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature. There are several databases available to you with the name CINAHL. Understanding which one to use will save you a lot of time and energy.

  • CINAHL - This is the general CINAHL database. It provides access to abstracts and indexing, as well as some full text, for more than 1,835 nursing and allied health journals, publications of the American Nurses Association and the National League for Nursing, nursing dissertations, and selected other biomedical journals. Limited coverage of psychology and management literature is also included.
  • CINAHL Plus with Full Text - This database provides abstracts and indexing as well as full text for hundreds of journals, plus legal cases, clinical innovations, critical paths, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials with indexing back to 1937. Offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, the database covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines. In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters, as well as Evidence-Based Care Sheets.
  • Pre-CINAHL - This database provides current awareness of new journal articles and includes a rotating file of limited bibliographic information (no subject searching), which are available to researchers only for the time when these articles are being assigned additional indexing. This enables users to gain access to article citations that otherwise would not be available. Once the bibliographic records are complete, they are added to the CINAHL database and removed from Pre-CINAHL.

Getting into CINAHL

  • Log into GALILEO. If you're off campus, log in through BlazeNet.

  • Select Medicine & Health, and then click on the Nursing & Allied Health link.
  • Now click on the link to CINAHL.

 

Selecting Multiple Databases

It is possible to select multiple databases to search all three databases at once.

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • Click on the Choose Databases tab.

 
  • Select the databases you wish to search (CINAHL will already be selected), such as CINAHL Plus with Full Text and Pre-CINAHL.

 

  • Left-click on the Continue button.

 

  • You will now be searching in multiple databases.

 

 

Simple search

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • In the Find window, type in your search terms.

 
  • Use Boolean Operators and Truncation to limit your results. Put phrases in double quotation marks     ( " " ).
  • Left-click on Search.

 

Advanced search techniques

There are several advanced search techniques available that will help improve your search results:

The Advanced Search

The Advanced Search allows you to search within particular fields. Let's use the example of searching for articles that have the word "depression" in the title, but were published in the year 2006.

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • Left-click on the Advanced Search tab.

 
  • In the first box, type in depression, and then select TI Title in the drop-down menu.

 
  • In the second box, type in 2006, and then select PY Year of Publication in the drop-down menu.

 
  • Left-click on Search.

 

 

Limiting Your Results to Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • Type your search statement into the search box.

 
  • Scroll down to the Limit your results section. Click on the box next to Peer Reviewed. (Other selections include Journal Subset and Publication Type.)

 
  • Click on the Search button.

 

 

Narrow Results by Subject

If you find that you are getting too many results, you can quickly reduce your results by narrowing by subject (This is different from using CINAHL Headings).

  • Perform a search in CINAHL.

 

  • On the left side of the screen, look at the subjects listed under Narrow Results by Subject.

 
  • Click on an appropriate subject that you would like to narrow your results to.

 

 

Narrow Results by Publication Type

Sometimes you will only want to pull up a specific type of article. These can include research articles, anecdotes, master’s theses, instruments, statistics and a multitude of other types of articles (even cartoons!). To narrow your results to a specific type of publication:

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • Type your search statement into the search box.

 
  • Scroll down to the Limit your results section. Click on the dropdown menu Publication Type, and select which type of publication you would like to search for.

 
  • Click on the Search button.

 

 

CINAHL Headings

The articles indexed in CINAHL have various subject headings associated with them. These are the "official terms" used to categorize articles. When a new disease or procedure is discovered, there are often several terms that are used until one becomes the "official" term. Also, these terms sometimes change over time to reflect a deeper understanding of the concept in question.

When in CINAHL, you can search the CINAHL Headings (sometimes called the thesaurus) to find the official term for your topic.

  • Log into CINAHL.

 

  • Click on the link CINAHL Headings.

 
  • In the Browse for: box, type your term (we'll use "cramps").

 

  • Click on the term that matches what you're looking for (we'll select "Muscle Cramp").

 

  • On the left, you'll see tree views of how your term relates to other terms in a hierarchy. On the right you'll see available subheadings and other notes on the term (such as historical terms used, other synonyms, etc.).

 

  • Select the box next to the major concept or any subheadings of relevance, and then click on the grey Add button (we'll just select "Major Concept").

 

  • Now you will see that the official term has been added to your search box above (for our example, we now have " (MM "Muscle Cramp") " added to our search box).

 

  • Click on Search and your results will display!

 

You can continue to browse the CINAHL headings in this manner to add terms to your search. All the articles that have the search terms you select will be displayed.

 



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