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What is CINAHL?
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Search journal literature related to nursing and the allied health disciplines. Also contains early-release citations for pre-published journal articles.
CINAHL, or the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, is an electronic database in which you can find references to journal articles as well as books and book chapters. The version Wright State has is called CINAHLPlus with Full Text. It indexes more than 5000 health care journals and provides access to more than 400 active full-text nursing and allied health journals. Although some coverage goes back as far as 1937, the bulk of the coverage goes back to 1981.
You can search CINAHL by typing in keywords for your main concepts, as you are used to doing in internet search engines. However, be aware that performing a subject heading search can often be a more efficient way to find the most relevant results on your topic.
Using Subject Headings in EBSCO: CINAHL and MEDLINE
This video demonstrates the use of subject headings in CINAHL, but searching Medical Subject Headings in EBSCO MEDLINE works the same way, except that the tab is labelled "MEDLINE-MeSH".
- Using CINAHL/MeSH Subject Headings in the new EBSCOhost InterfaceStep-by-step guidance from EBSCO with screen captures included. Note: The screenshots demonstrate subject / MeSH Heading searching in two databases simultaneously (MEDLINE and CINAHL), but the process works the same if you are searching CINAHL alone. If you want to search both, follow these steps:
1. Open the CINAHL link available on this page or anywhere on the Wright State University Libraries web site.
2. Where it reads "Searching: CINAHL Plus with Full Text", select the blue CINAHL Plus with Full Text link.
3. Find MEDLINE on the list of databases and check the box to the left of the MEDLINE label. (This will add MEDLINE to the databases being searched).
CINAHL Options to Help Find Articles Likely to Have at Least One Nurse Author
Using these search options in CINAHL do not guarantee that at least one of the authors will be a nurse (unless you are using one of the nurse author limiters), but the articles will at least be nursing-related.
If you have questions about how to apply these options to your searches, ask the Nursing Librarian.
Disclaimer: These strategies are not recommended if you need to do a comprehensive search of the literature for patient care.
Available Limiters:
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Journal Subset = Nursing
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You can apply this limiter by including it in one of your search blanks: type in SB Nursing .
Nursing as part of your original search strategy:
- Subheading ="Nursing", if available
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This option only works with some CINAHL subject headings. It does NOT apply to keyword searching.
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The CINAHL subject heading you are using may or may not include the subheading "Nursing" (/NU) . If it does, checking that option will help you find articles that the indexers considered to be nursing-related.
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nurs* as one of your search terms
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If you add nurs* as one of the terms in your search blanks, the interface will find items that include the word nurse, nurses, or nursing in the title of the article or the journal, in the article abstract, or in the article subject headings.
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This is the broadest way to include the concept of nursing in your search so articles retrieved by this method may be less relevant to nursing than articles retrieved by one of the other methods.
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Combining the results from these methods
Each of the above methods retrieves different results, so to give yourself a larger single set of results, combine the results from all of these search strategies using OR.
