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NURS 616 Advanced Nursing Research

Welcome!

Welcome to the Library research Guide for NURS 616!  

You can also find links to Library Resources in Blackboard in the left navigation column of all Nursing courses.

Click the Help tab above for assistance with any research questions!  

Literature search databases / tutorials

PubMed​ Search / PubMed for Nurses Tutorial

  • PubMed (from the National Library of Medicine) comprises more than 27 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
  • When you search PubMed, you are searching citation information and abstracts only. 
  • You can create a free account (myNCBI) to save your search strategies and result collections.
    • Click "Create Alert" at the top of the search screen to save your strategy.
    • Click "Send to" at the upper right of your result list to save chosen results to a myNCBI Collection or Citation manager (like RefWorks).
  • Please note, the link above or the PubMed link from the Health Sciences Library Quick Links must be used to see the "Owned by Upstate?" link for the full text of articles, unless you see "Free full text" with the citation.

Cochrane Search / How to use the Cochrane Library

  • The Cochrane Library is a collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making, and a seventh database that provides information about Cochrane groups.
  • Cochrane Systematic Reviews are indexed in PubMed, searching the Cochrane Library adds the other databases, for example the CENTRAL Clinical Trials database.

CINAHL Search / CINAHL Advanced Searching Tutorial

  • CINAHL Plus with Full Textis the core research tool for all areas of nursing and allied health literature.
  • Click the box near "Suggest Subject Terms" (above the search fields) to find relevant CINAHL Headings.
  • You can create a free CINAHL account to save searches and results.
    • Look for the option to "Save Searches / Alerts" to save strategies.
    • Send chosen citations to your folder, then go to Folder View to "Export" to a citation manager, email or save results.

Google Scholar Search / Google Scholar Search Tips

  • Google Scholar offers a search of scholarly resources in all academic disciplines.
  • You are searching full text rather than abstracts.
  • There are no medical subject headings or evidence-based filters to narrow your search.
  • Use Scholar if you are not finding much and want to expand your scope.
  • There is a helpful Advanced Search feature.<
  • Scholar settings can be edited to add a link to export citations to RefWorks or find Full Text at Upstate.

Searching with PICO

This video will define PICO and how it is used.

Video used under a Creative Commons CC:BY license - Using PICO to Structure Your Literature Search by JWSLibrary (John W. Scott Health Sciences Library, University of Alberta)

Types of information and resources

What does it mean to refer to a resource by the terms PRIMARY and SECONDARY?

~ PRIMARY resource:  the author(s) collected or created the data / research presented

Examples: original research published in a peer reviewed journal, dissertation

Where?  PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, Scholar, Government data (e.g. CDC web site and publications e.g. MMWR)

~ SECONDARY resource: the author(s) summarized, analyzed or synthesized the research of others

Examples: literature review, systematic review, organization web sites (see link below), clinical point of care tools

Where?  Databases listed above, Google, Wikipedia, Up to Date, Dynamed

~ How do I know an article is from a peer reviewed journal?

Ulrichsweb is an easy to search source of detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals of all types: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more.

About The Health Sciences Library

Contact us for additional help with using Library resources (databases, e-journals, e-books or interlibrary loan) and services (reference, library instruction, study rooms, etc.).