Nursing: Journal Articles

The most relevant databases will most likely be these EBSCO databases

• Academic Search Complete
• CINAHL Plus with Full Text
• Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
• Medline

Go to our Library Homepage

Click on the Library Databases (Articles and eBooks) 

Under "All Subjects" pull down the menu and choose "Health" or "Nursing"

Please Note:

All College Users: Enter your College Username and Password

You will see that the "Best Bets" are

CINAHL Plus with Full Text

Medline

Health Source/Nursing Academic Edition

Look on the left-hand side for ways to limit your search to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed Journals).

Note: You can limit by date, too!

Evidence-Based Care Sheets (EBCS) are summaries on specific key topics, which are focused on nursing practice. Each evidence-based care sheet incorporates the latest evidence, statistics, research and references on a given topic. The references are ranked, using a coding matrix, according to the type of literature they represent (systematic reviews, meta-analysis, etc).

From the CINAHL database, you can browse the list of Evidence-Based Care Sheets from the toolbar at the top of the page.

Quick Lessons (QL) are clinically organized nursing overviews, with information mapped to the nursing workflow (i.e. description/etiology, signs and symptoms, assessment, treatment goals, red flags, what to tell the patient/patient’s family). From the CINAHL database homepage, you can browse the list of Quick Lessons from the toolbar at the top of the page. Hover above the More drop-down and select Quick Lessons.

***First: Read Jennifer Raff's "How to Read and Understand a Scientific Article" ***

Scholarly articles are often very long.  They can be 10, 20, maybe even 30 pages or more!  Check out this video for tips on how to skim a scholarly article.  This video is presented by the University of Tennesee Chatanooga Library's Online Workshop.

To formulate the search for evidence-based research answer these questions:

P - Patient/Population/Problem: such as age group, gender, ethnic group, disease or condition

I -   Intervention/Issue: treatment, course of action, symptom

C - Comparison: alternative to compare with the intervention such another treatment, medication or test; not always necessary

O - Outcome: what you are measuring or hoping to accomplish

For example, the PICO for the question: Does having a CT scan as a child increase the risk of cancer?

P = children

I  = CT scan

C = no comparison

O =  cancer risk

Go to the Academic Search Complete database

Click on Advanced Search

Sample Advanced Search