Nursing Subject Guide: CINAHL

CINAHL is an authoritative source of high-quality nursing information. There is a strict selection policy, compared to the web where you may find unreliable health information.

The library pays the fees involved in providing CINAHL for our users.  If you search for articles using Google or another search engine, you may be asked to pay a fee before you can access the full text.  Avoid extra fees and use CINAHL instead!  If you need an article that we don't have in print or in full text, we'll order it for you - free of charge - through our information delivery service.

The web is a great resource, but many scholarly articles and journals aren't available for free online.  CINAHL includes hundreds of nursing journals and in many instances, you can find the full text in PDF format and print, save, or e-mail it to yourself.  If we don't have the full text, we will likely be able to get the material for you, at no cost to you.

CINAHL makes it easy to find articles that meet certain criteria (e.g., published in a nursing journal within the last five years).  Use CINAHL's limits to target your search results--it's much easier than trying to apply similar limits for an internet search. 

CINAHL is a great resource for nursing literature, but it also includes titles in biomedicine, allied health, complementary/alternative medicine, and more.  For many assignments, you will be asked to locate articles specifically from nursing journals. 

Find out how to limit your results to current nursing journal articles with the handout below.  

There is overlap between CINAHL and MEDLINE, and many searchers choose to search both for more comprehensive results.  CINAHL covers primarily English-language journals and includes smaller journals not covered by MEDLINE, plus offers more choices of nursing-focused subject headings. 

If you are searching both databases, you can exclude MEDLINE results from your CINAHL search. In the Advanced Search screen, Choose Filters. then under Limit Your Results, choose Exclude MEDLINE records.

One tip for searching in CINAHL is to use subject headings (also called CINAHL Headings) to focus your search.  CINAHL uses a "controlled vocabulary" to make your searching easier, since you don't need to search all variations, spellings and synonyms for a term like you might need to if searching only by keyword. CINAHL headings are the terms used by the people who index the material in CINAHL to assign subject headings.  Using these headings can help you get the most relevant results.

For example, a stroke could also be referred to as a cerebrovascular accident or CVA.  If you search by keyword, you need to think of all the relevant synonyms to include in your search.  If you use the controlled vocabulary, that means that the same term is consistently used to describe the same concept.  In this instance, "Stroke" is the preferred term and is reflected in the CINAHL headings.

Using CINAHL headings has some other advantages too.  You can apply your terms as a "major concept" or the major focus of the articles retrieved, which can help you get more relevant results and focus your search when you get too many results.  You can also view a "scope note" to give you more information about terms--simply click on the name of the subject heading for more information.

Moreover, when you use CINAHL headings, you can also use subheadings to further focus your search.  For example, there is a subheading for "Ethical Issues" that is very useful for an assignment in NURS208.  There are a variety of subheadings that are useful for the NURS120 disease paper, such as "Physiopathology," "Diagnosis," "Risk Factors," and various treatment options.

To search by subject headings:

• Use the Advanced Search option
• click on CINAHL Headings under the search boxes, or
• choose one of the subject options in the search field drop-down (e.g., MW Word in Subject Heading; MH Exact Subject Heading; MJ Word in Major Subject Heading; NN Exact Major Subject Heading; DH Exact Minor Subject Heading)

As an example, let's say you want to search for information about the history of four-year nursing programs.  Click on "CINAHL Headings" to get started. 

If you type in "nursing education" and click Enter you'll see a list of related subject headings, including "Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate." 

Click on that Subject Heading to find a definition and information about how the term is used if you're unsure. 

You can also use subheadings to further focus your search.  You can either select all subheadings, or choose a subheading, like "History," if one is appropriate to your search.   The subheadings that display will vary based on the subject you are searching.  Some examples include Ethical Issues, Psychosocial Factors, Prognosis, Drug Therapy, and Diet Therapy.

After clicking the checkbox for the subject heading and any subheadings you want, choose Add to Search.

Finally, click on Search to conduct your search.   

Your results are a focused and manageable set rather than the hundreds of articles you'd find doing a keyword search.  You also didn't need to think of synonyms for "baccalaureate" (such as "four year," "BS," "BSN," etc.). 

You can apply limits to your search to help you find the best evidence using CINAHL.  One option is to use the Evidence-Based Practice limit. This will limit results to articles from evidence-based practice journals, articles about evidence-based practice, research articles (such as systematic reviews or clinical trials), and commentaries on research studies.  Please note that this limit might be so restrictive that your search results are very small.  If that's the case, try some of the other strategies listed below.

To use this limit, make sure you're in the Advanced Search option. Choose Filters; under Limit your Results, check the box for Evidence-Based Practice.

OR

Another strategy to find evidence-based information is also in the Advanced Search option Choose Filters; under Limit your Results, scroll to Special Interest. Choose Evidence-Based Practice. 

OR

Another strategy is to limit your results to specific levels of evidence using publication types (even as simple as choosing the check-box for Research Articles). Again, make sure you're in the Advanced Search option. Under Limit your Results, scroll to Publication Type.  You could select the Randomized Controlled Trials box, or choose other specific types of articles (you can click on more than one option). Suggestions for locating good evidence include systematic reviews, clinical trials, and meta analysis.  

CINAHL also provides hundreds of Evidence-Based Care Sheets, most of which are two page informational overviews including "What We Know" and "What We Can Do" supported by a list of references.  These care sheets are helpful for background information and references, and while they are written and reviewed by RNs and MDs, they are published by CINAHL Information Systems and are not generally considered to be journal articles. To find these sheets, select them as a Publication Type.

For help understanding types of studies, see Understanding Research Study Designs from the University of Minnesota.

The following tips may helpful for searching for biographical information in CINAHL: 

• Search for the person's name as a Named Person search.  Use the format of last name followed by first initial and then Named Person (NP) in the drop-down menu.
• Alternatively, use Advanced Search to search by the person's name (and don't change the Select a Field option in the drop-down menu). Under Filters, use the Publication Types under Limit Your Results to choose Biography, Interview, and/or Obituary.

If you're searching for information about different fields of nursing (such as for the FSS118 class assignment), consider using the following CINAHL headings:

• Nursing as a profession
• Careers in nursing
• Specialties, nursing

You can combine CINAHL headings and also use subheadings like education, manpower, administration, trends, and organizations to find information relevant to this assignment.