Nursing & Midwifery  Tags: evidence_based_nursing nursing midwifery evidence_based_practice health_statistics ebm clinical_resources  

Watch this video first!! 

1. Go to the University of Sydney Library homepage http://www.library.usyd.edu.au.
2. Choose Databases - Subject lists - Nursing and Midwifery
3. Choose Cinahl (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health)

Or go to http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/databases/nursing.html

Click on the Cinahl link (Please note: If you are off-campus you will need to enter your UniKey details to access the database).

Search each keyword (subject heading) separately

To use the Advanced Search you need to enter and search for one concept (or subject) at a time

Suggest Subject Terms

The 'Suggest Subject Terms' option helps the database find the subject in the thesaurus (i.e. the controlled vocabulary of the database). This feature lists the best matching subject headings for your search term.

Example search

In this example, your search for ' type 2 diabetes mellitus' will map to the best subject heading within the thesaurus, ie ' Diabetes Mellitus, Non-Insulin-Dependent':

Select the subject heading by ticking the check box, and scroll up to click Search.

(Only use the Browse button if you would like to revise your search and start again).

Please note: the Explode option is only present if there are more specific terms available. This is an important feature of the database. It allows you to retrieve the broadest set of relevant results by including more specific terms related to the subject heading. We recommend that you choose to explode if it is available.

Combine Searches

Once you have searched for each of your concepts (or subjects) separately, you can combine the results to find articles which address ALL of your concepts.

Select the searches you want to combine, and select Search with AND.

Limit Search

Limits can be applied to your results. Example limits; Research Article, Abstracts Available, or Publication Year. Click on Revise Search for more options.

The Research Article limit can be particularly useful as it will restrict your results to research studies containing data collection, methodology, discussion of results and so on.

You can choose more than one limit e.g. Research and Publication Years 1995 - 2009. There are more limits available than those shown above.

If limits are applied after a search, they will apply to the most recent search only.

Check search results

Go through the results and view the abstracts of articles you are interested in by hovering the mouse over the magnifying glass icon to view the abstract of individual articles.

To select articles, click on the Add to folder link for downloading or emailing or exporting to reference management software such as Endnote.

IMPORTANT: To access more subject headings click on Full Citation of an article.

Accessing the full text of an article

If an article has a link marked Full Text at ... link as shown below, full text access to the article is normally available. Selecting Check University of Sydney Library catalogue will link you to any full text available via the library catalogue.

Folder View

Use the Folder View link on the right side to e-mail, print, save or export your results to EndNote.

Select the references you want to print, email or save to Endnote by either checking the box to the left of each article, or clicking select / deselect all.

Print - click the printer icon to print out the selected references.

Email - click on the envelope icon to email the selected references to an email address.

Save - click on the disk icon to save the selected articles to a file.

IMPORTANT: Always include the Search History for retrieval purposes.

Export to Endnote - click on the fourth icon to export the selected articles to Endnote, or other reference management software.

For more information about how to search, you can:

• watch the learning video
• join a class with a librarian at a library near you.
• contact the Nursing Library nursing@library.usyd.edu.au
  ph: 02 9351 0541.

For information about the CINAHL organisation:

• CINAHL Support Center via EBSCOhost.
• Further information on the CINAHL indexing service  including subject coverage, specific interest categories, publication/document types, quality filters, journals indexed.