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NUR 7005 - Nursing Research and Evidence for Practice: Literature Search Help

A guide to help you locate the best evidence for clinical questions.

Appropriate Databases for a Literature Review

When searching for individual research studies in healthcare, PubMed and CINAHL should be used. Google and Google Scholar are NOT sufficient for doing a good literature search in health care, although you can use Google Scholar to supplement your searches in subject specific databases.

The Right Tools for the Job - Literature Searching for Evidence-Based Practice

Google Scholar alone is not sufficient for identifying evidence.

Title screen for PowerPoint file - The Right Tools for the Job

Asking the Clinical Question

Strategies for Effective Searching, Part 1 (length: 4:37)

Strategies for Effective Searching, Part 2 (length: 6:08)

About the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

CINAHL: Keyword Searching Using PICO (length: 2:43)

CINAHL: Broadening Your Search (length: 3:05)

OPTIONAL - CINAHL - MeSH/Subject Heading Searching from EBSCO Support (length: 3:32)

This video from EBSCO shows how to start searching CINAHL Subject Headings from scratch.  It does not use a PICO question example, but you can use the same process to identify subject headings for any of the keyword elements of your PICO(T) question.

Using PubMed in Evidence-Based Practice

NLM PubMed Interactive Tutorial: Find Articles on a Topic (approximate length: 1:00)

Find Articles on a Topic: Interactive Tutorial

Tutorial credit: U.S. National Library of Medicine

NLM PubMed Interactive Tutorial: PubMed Subject Search: How It Works (approximate length: 4:00)

PubMed Subject Search: How It Works

Tutorial credit: U.S. National Library of Medicine

OPTIONAL - Use MeSH to Build a Better PubMed Query (from NCBI)

This National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) video demonstrates how to build a search from scratch using MeSH.  Although it is not a search on a PICO(T) question, the same process can be used to determine if there are relevant Medical Subject Headings for your population, intervention, comparison, and/or outcome.

For mental health topics-APA PsycINFO: Searching with the Thesaurus and Index Terms on EBSCOHost (by APA Publishing Training)

Mental health-related topics only - Using the Methodology Limiter in PsycINFO on EBSCOHost

Demonstrates ways to limit to specific types of research methodologies in PsycINFO.

Search Outcome - Tracking & Documenting Your Search Results

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Evidence Evaluation Table - Template and Sample

AJN Series: Evidence-Based Practice: Step by Step

These persistent links allow Wright State University users to access these articles through our subscription to AJN. Note: If off campus, you will be prompted for your campus w number and password before being taken to the article.

This collection of articles was authored by faculty from the Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation's Center for the Advancement of Evidence-Based Practice and published in the American Journal of Nursing (AJN)

APA Style