USING CINAHL AND PUBMED TO FIND NURSING RESEARCH ARTICLES Please turn on speakers for audio. Slides will advance automatically. Right click to pause or end. A Presentation for Saint Louis University School of Nursing Students By Mary Krieger, MLIS, RN Medical Center Library June 9, 2011

Difference between Google and a database Google (search engine) Searches billions of web pages… not necessarily journal articles No quality control of content Databases at SLU (CINAHL, PubMed) Cover specialized health sciences subject areas Selective in journals that are included More effective and time saving for students

Which database to choose--CINAHL? Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) Subscription only--not free Covers English and non-English language journals Dates of most articles from 1981 to present

Which database to choose--CINAHL? Contains nursing-related subject headings Can limit a search to Research Articles and Peer Reviewed Journals Includes books, nursing dissertations, ANA and NLN publications, standards of practice, book chapters, and others

CINAHL link on MCL home page…

Which database to choose--PubMed/MEDLINE? Produced by the National Library of Medicine 5,200 worldwide journals in 37 languages Includes over 20 million citations from 1940s to present Mainly peer reviewed biomedical journal articles Can limit to nursing subset

What is the difference between PubMed and MEDLINE? PubMed is the free version of MEDLINE Library also subscribes to Ovid MEDLINE Search interface looks different and searches differently Database is the same/citations same Your preference--choose one and become familiar

PubMed link on MCL home page…

SETTING UP YOUR SEARCH

Write out your question In patients with central venous catheters, are gauze dressings or transparent dressings more effective in preventing infection? Identify the important concepts Central venous catheters Gauze dressings Transparent dressings Prevent infection (use only if result set too large)

Connecting search concepts in databases 3 search concepts: central venous catheters, gauze, transparent Use the Boolean operators (connectors) AND--will retrieve database records that contain all concepts in the same record. OR--will retrieve database records that contain any of the terms; use to connect synonyms NOT--will exclude database records with a specific term; use cautiously

Entering the search in PubMed

SELECTING SEARCH TERMS KEYWORD VS. SUBJECT HEADINGS

Two ways to search PubMed/CINAHL Keyword search--also called natural language Subject Heading search

Keyword searching… Searches for an exact character string Need to use synonyms for a concept Side rails, bed rails Older adults, elderly, aged, geriatric Consider singular and plural forms of words Child, children

Keyword searching… Formatting of words, e.g. needle stick (190 hits in CINAHL), needlestick (2,800 hits in CINAHL) Variant spelling, e.g. behavior, behaviour Two meanings for a word, e.g. walkers, AIDS Keyword searching is fine if you remember these caveats

Keyword technique--Truncation or Stemming Retrieves a word with various endings: Asterisk symbol * in most databases In PubMed--hospital* In CINAHL--hospital* Retrieves articles with any of these words: hospital, hospitals, hospitalized, hospitalization

Keyword technique--Phrase Searching Many web sites and databases allow quotation marks for exact phrase searching, e.g. white coat hypertension

Subject heading search… PubMed & CINAHL have a master list of terms called subject headings (MeSH in PubMed) One subject heading is chosen to represent a concept Example: Decubitus ulcer, pressure sore, bedsore Pressure ulcer--subject heading in PubMed and CINAHL

Subject heading search… Searches only the subject heading field, not title and abstract Pulls all records with the same subject heading-- spend less time thinking of synonyms Subject headings in PubMed and CINAHL vary slightly--CINAHL has more nursing-focused terms

Summary of keyword vs. subject heading Keyword Search--will retrieve records with an exact match in the title, abstract, or subject heading fields. Pros: Retrieves more results, easy to use (like Google searching) Cons: Less precise, more irrelevant hits, you must think of synonyms

Summary of keyword vs. subject heading Subject Heading Search--will retrieve all articles indexed in the database with that subject heading Pros: More precise, less irrelevant hits, you don't need to use synonyms Cons: Must use the master list to find subject headings, subject heading may not exist, indexing is imperfect

SELECTING ARTICLES FOR YOUR RESEARCH PAPER

Pitfalls to avoid… Letters, commentaries, news items, and poster abstracts are usually NOT acceptable as sources for your papers Avoid articles in consumer health journals and trade publications Try to find research that is conducted in a country and with a population similar to your practice area

EXCELLENT!! Is Cameroon similar to U.S. population?

Non-English Poster abstract-- note one page length

Consumer health journal-- probably not acceptable

None of these would be acceptable sources

Additional Resources Nursing Research Guide A web guide on how to use SLUs online journals, books and databases for your research SLU School of Nursing Library Online (Tutorials) Medical Center Library home page

Additional Resources You may always contact the Nursing Liaison Librarian for assistance with difficult search topics: Mary Krieger, MLIS, RN Office: Permission has been granted by EBSCO Publishing to use screen shots from the EBSCOhost database for educational purposes only.