Tutorials A-Z

CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) is generally the best database to use to find qualitative research articles related to a nursing or allied health topic. CINAHL has in-depth thesaurus terms and filtering tools, which make it easier to limit your results to articles that fit discipline-specific criteria, such as articles written by a nurse or from a nursing journal.

In addition to journal articles, you'll also find evidence-based care sheets, clinical trials, and “quick lessons” - overviews of disease and conditions. Access is limited to 12 simultaneous users.

Tip: Browse CINAHL Headings

Basic CINAHL search offers one search box in which you can enter your keywords. To help you identify the most effective keywords, CINAHL offers a searchable medical subject heading thesaurus, called CINAHL Headings. This tool is optional to use.

• How to use CINAHL Headings

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  1. Select CINAHL Headings in the Research tools toolbar.
     • On smaller screens, use the hamburger icon to open the menu containing this tool.
  2. Enter your keyword and select the magnifying glass icon to search (or hit enter on your keyboard).
  3. A list of medical terms is displayed.
     • Select Major Concept to access subheadings related to the medical term.
  4. Select a heading or subheading (or multiple) and select the Add to search button.
  5. Select Search to find articles about the heading(s) you selected.

   

  Check out EBSCO's tutorial on Using CINAHL/MeSH Subject Headings for more detailed explanations.

Tip: Use Allied Health-specific filters to improve your search results

CINAHL defaults to a basic search box. Use CINAHL's Advanced Search tools to filter your search results with allied health-specific limiters. These filters are located on the Advanced Search page under the search boxes.

• First Author is Nurse and Any Author is Nurse

• Helps ensure research is grounded in the nursing discipline.
  

• Evidence-Based Practice

• Applying this limiter allows you to limit results to articles from evidence-based practice journals, articles about evidence-based practice, research articles (including systematic reviews, clinical trials, meta analyses, etc.), and commentaries on research studies (applying practice to research). This is not a comprehensive EBP search; it's just one way to limit your search.
  

• Publication Type

• Limit your search results to higher levels of evidence.
  

• Publication Date

• Limit your search results to material published more recently.
  

• Location of Practice, Geographic Subset, or Journal Subset

• Limit your search results to research associated with specific countries or continents. (Beware - this limit removes a lot of relevant results due to many articles not being labeled with geographic tags.)
  

• Exclude MEDLINE records

• CINAHL emphasizes nursing and allied health disciplines. There is an overlap of coverage between CINAHL and PubMed, a database which includes all general medicine disciplines. You can limit your search to material NOT in PubMed by utilizing the "Exclude Medline Records" option.
  

• Age Groups

• Limit your search by patient population age.
  

Tip: Get free full text from CCC Library

Free full text of EBSCO articles are available several ways, in several formats.

• Immediate access

• Most articles have full text available in PDF or Online full text formats.

  • PDF format is useful for printing, or downloading and saving.
  • Online full text format is useful for reading on a mobile device, using a screen reader, translating to another language, and listening to the article read aloud.

  
   

• Interlibrary Loan request

• Sometimes articles are not available in full text through EBSCO. When this happens, request the free full-text of an article using the Request item link. CCC Library will email you the article in 3-10 days.

  

Tip: Save time; get premade APA and MLA citations

Retrieve premade MLA9 and APA7 citations that you can copy and paste into your References or Works Cited list. Always check premade citations for formatting accuracy.

1. Open an article or eBook record.
2. Select the Cite tool icon to copy citation information for articles and eBooks (circled in red). 
3. Select a citation style from the Style drop-down menu.
4. Select the Copy to clipboard button.

The formatted citation is copied to your clipboard and ready to be pasted into your document.