Nursing Research

This page is designed for NURS 2200 students. The advice it offers might not be relevant for other classes.

Vary Your Terms

Be sure that you are using every variation of your search terms. For example, instead of just searching for ventilator associated pneumonia, try:

VAP OR ventilator associated pneumonia OR ventilator acquired pneumonia

No Really, Vary Your Terms

Do the same thing with your interventions. There are a lot of different names for similar ideas. Such as nutrition and diet, or walking and exercise and ambulation.

(DVT OR deep vein thrombosis) AND (walking OR exercise OR ambulation)

Take Off the Intervention

If you aren't getting any results for a particular intervention, even when you use a variety of search terms, try leaving the intervention off of your search and search only for the condition to see what interventions are frequently written about. Not every intervention will have an article written in the last five years. For example, instead of searching for DVT AND compression socks OR compression hose, you could just search: 

DVT OR deep vein thrombosis

Copy Their Terms

Look at the article record in CINAHL, what words are shown as keywords? Are there any relevant terms that you aren't using? Add those to your search. 

Use both:

• Peer Reviewed - limits your results to articles from journals with an established review process
• Published Date - set the first year box to 5 years ago, this limits your results to the last 5 years

And one of the below:

• Evidence Based Practice - limits your results to articles that involve a study of interventions in a real world setting

OR

• Research Article - like Evidence Based Practice this limits your results to studies.  Use one or the other, and if you're not getting enough results, switch which of these filters you use.

Other CINAHL limiters to consider: 

• Geography - limit your results to the United States if you're getting too many foreign results
• Age - limit your subjects to Adult if you're getting too many pediatric articles
• Language - limit your results to English if you're getting too many articles in another language
• Journal Subset - set this to Core Nursing, a collection mostly American nursing journals if you're getting too many non USA results or non nursing results
• Any Author Is Nurse - set this limiter if you're getting too many results for non-nursing interventions

Don't use:

• Full text - This will unnecessarily limit your results, eliminating relevant articles that you had access to. Don't use this.