Library Research Assignment
Distance Students

YOUR NAME:

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YOUR CLASS NUMBER:

Using CINAHL

Cummulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature

and

the "Find It" button

What is CINAHL? CINAHL, Cummulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, is the best nursing database. It is an indexed, searchable electronic database of bibliographic records for the literature & research in virtually all English-language nursing journals, publications from the American Nurses' Association and the National League for Nursing, and journals from 17 allied health disciplines. The database also covers literature found in consumer health, health sciences librarianship, chiropractics, and health services administration.

Some bibliographic records will provide full-text acces to the articles they describe either via a direct link in CINAHL or by using the library's Find It link. Articles without full-text availability, can be ordered via Interlibrary Loan.

Where? From the top left menu on the ReSEARCH Station, select "Research Guides" and then select “Nursing” from the alphabetical list of subjects. You first see the "Multi Search" tab page that allows you to search many databases simultaneously. We are only interested in searching CINAHL at this time, so click on the "Articles & Databases" tab. These are the best databases we offer to find nursing literature. The best nursing database is CINAHL and is therefore listed first.

1.  Enter CINAHL.

• Select CINAHL from the Nursing subject page by clicking on it.

2.  Single term search for journal articles.To keep things simple, we will restrict our search to just journal articles. CINAHL indexes all types of literature, including books, book chapters, case studies, clinical trials, etc. In the "Limit your results" area, you will find a box labeled "Publication Type." Scroll through the options in this box to become familiar with the various publication type options.

• Select "Journal Article" from the Publication Type box.

• Type a single term of interest in the "Find" box near the top of the screen. e.g. diabetes, and click on the "search" button.

Enter the term you used:

A results screen should now appear. Above citation number 1 of the results, you should see the number of hits, e.g. 1 to 20 of 45953, meaning there are 45953 citations and the first 20 are being displayed.

Enter the number of hits received:

Most of the citations will be for journal articles which include your term somewhere in the citation or related data fields.

NOTE: If you have more than 20 citations, you will see blue numbers after the number of hits statement, each representing a page with 20 more citations. Click on the blue numbers or the blue words "Previous" or "Next" to view 20 more records.

• Browsing through the results list, select a journal article that looks interesting to you by clicking on the articles title.

Note how each record is displayed, giving you data fields: Title, Author, Affiliation, Source (journal name, year, volume, issue, and page no.), Major & Minor subject headings, and sometimes an Abstract.

• Supply the following information from the record:

1. Article title:

2. Author(s)

3. Source (Journal title):

4. Publication Year

5. Volume

6. Issue Number

7. Pages

All the above, 1-7, are needed to properly cite an article in a research paper.

3. Combining search terms.

"And", "Or", and "Not" are words used between terms to combine them. They are called operators and do the following:

AND - combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms.For example, antibiotics AND misuse finds articles that contain both words, antibiotics AND misuse.

OR - combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, antibiotics OR antifungal finds results that contain one or both words.

NOT - excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, antibiotics NOT erythromycin finds results that contain the word antibiotics but NOT the word erythromycin.

• Using any of the data from the following partial citation, find the full record/citation and fill in the blanks.  

HINT: Combine some of the key terms below using "and." Also note, if you use "Kiernan," the author, as a search term, change the "Select a Field" box to "AU Author" or you will not receive satisfactory results.

Citation data:

Title: Ask the expert. a temperature:   is best?

Author: Kiernan-BS

Source: Journal-of-the-Society-of- - ,  Oct-Dec; vol. issue : 192-5 (17 ref)
Publication Year:
Major Subjects: *Body-Temperature-Determination-In-Infancy-and-Childhood
Minor Subjects: Infant-; Child-; Child-Preschool; Primary-Health-Care; Thermometers-; Axillary-Body-Temperature-In-Infancy-and-Childhood; Oral-Body-Temperature-In-Infancy-and-Childhood; Rectal-Body-Temperature-In-Infancy-and-Childhood

4. Determine availability of an article.

As a distance student you can acquire almost any article or book through the interlibrary loan services. Click here to learn more about interlibrary loan for distance students.

IMPORTANT: As a distance student you should only use the interlibrary loan request forms provided through the "Distance & Online Services" page. The page is accessed by selecting "Distance Education" from the Research Station, marked below by the red arrow.

Many articles may be available to read online as electronic documents (articles) in pdf or html format. These electronic documents are also refered to as full-text. CINAHL may provide a link at the bottom of the bibliographic record labeled "PDF" or "HTML." If not, you should at least see the "Find It" link, , or "Check for Availability" link found at the bottom of many journal article records. This link is used to determine full-text availability.

In the CINAHL database:

• Click on "Clear" to start a new search. It is found near the top next to the "Search" button.
• Type "Geriatric Nursing" in the search box, do not include the quotation marks, and change the "Select a Field" box to "So Publication Name."
• (OPTIONAL) Type a search term in the second search box.

Note: the two search terms/boxes should be combined with "and."

• Click on "Search"

You should now be viewing a results list with all articles being from the journal Geriatric Nursing.

Warning: there are two sources with the same name. You don't want the one with "Scutari Projects Ltd."

• Click on the “Find It” or "Check for Availability" link for any article from your results published in or after July 2000, preferably one of interest to you.

Note that a new window was opened, the Citation Station, looking like this:

The ScienceDirect link takes you to a full-text version of the article as found in the Science Direct database. This is your best option.

The Meriam Library Catalog link takes you to our catalog record for the journal, Geriatric Nursing.

The Interlibrary Loan link is provided in case there are no working options listed above it, like ScienceDirect or Meriam Library Catalog. As a distance student, you should not ever use this option from the Citation Station. See the "IMPORTANT" note at the start of this section.

5.  Retrieve the article.

• Click on the ScienceDirect link

  NOTE: Another new window was opened. It took you directly to the record for that article in Science Direct. Not all full-text links take you directly to the article. Some simply take you to the database where you then need to search again for your specific article.

  Do not close the Citation Station window because you will need it later.

  • Click on the "E-mail Article" option found in the right margin.

  

  Complete the email form:

  • Add your name to the "Sender's Name" box.
  • Add your email address to the "Sender's E-mail" box.
  • Add rsoares@csuchico.edu in the "Recipient's E-mail:" box.
    You can use the email option to share articles with fellow students and your teachers. Unfortunately, not all databases provide an email option.
  • Add your class number, e.g. N300w or N293, to the subject box so that it says,
    "N300w Recommended article on ScienceDirect."
  • Click on "send".
    You will receive a confirmation from your professor within 24 hours.
  • Click on "continue" on the email confirmation screen, taking you back to your article.
  • Click on the "PDF" tab to display the entire article.

  

  From here you may print your article or simply read it.

6. Test

Now test your knowledge:

• Find any article in the journal Clinical Nursing Research that addresses the problem of pain management.

  Give citation data, i.e. Title, Author(s), year, volume, issue, page no. for this article.

• List the Citation Station options. For example the options for Geriatric Nursing were: Science Direct, Meriam Library Catalog, Interlibrary Loan. What are the options for Clinical Nursing Research?

Congratulations! You're done. You should now have enough knowledge to get started using CINAHL for a research paper. If you would like to make comments or suggestions, they are welcome. Please add them here:

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END OF ASSIGNMENT.

Assignment created by Rich Soares, Nursing Librarian. 7/1/03 mod 9/03, 5/05, 8/06, 07/08.