9.4: Using Databases

Using the appropriate database will help you streamline your search and provide better results. The most commonly used database is the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). CINAHL is an index of English-language and selected other-language journal articles about nursing, allied health, biomedicine and healthcare. When searching for references and resources that are evidence based and up to date, CINAHL is the most commonly used resource in Nursing and Allied Health research. If your college or university doesn't subscribe to CINAHL, you might want to look for Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition or Nursing and Allied Health: OneFile. Both CINAHL and Health Source: Nursing/Academic are EBSCO databases. Nursing and Allied Health: OneFile is a Gale database. The interfaces will look different but the concepts are exactly the same.

No matter what database you are using to perform your research, getting to the most accurate information without getting side tracked can be quite a challenge. Entering the most concise search terms will help you reach the desired content in an efficient manner. Before we search a database, though, there is an important limiter we can use to help narrow our searches.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are words that indicate the relationship between search terms. These terms are AND, OR, and NOT. You may have noticed these terms in most databases, often in a drop-down menu next to the search box.

The dropdown in any EBSCO database looks like:

Figure 9.2 Ebsco Database

If you are using a Gale database, the dropdowns will look like this:

Figure 9.3 Gale database

All databases will have Boolean limiters but you may have to look for them.

AND can be used to narrow the number of results. AND forces the database to only retrieve results that list both terms. You can replace cat AND dog with examples that apply to nursing like magnetic resonance imaging AND therapeutics. You will only get results that have both terms in the results.

cat AND dog

Figure 9.4 AND Boolean Operator

OR can be used to broaden the number of results that you retrieve. This is useful for synonyms, or words that mean the same thing. In this example, you could search for cat OR feline. You can also use OR when searching for similar terms. For example, you may need information about household pets, namely dogs or cats. Using OR will retrieve articles that mention either of the terms. A nursing example could be magnetic resonance imaging OR MRI. That way you would get results that had either search term. Databases are very specific and might not recognize that magnetic resonance imaging and MRI are the same thing.

cat OR dog

Figure 9.5 OR Boolean Operator

NOT is used to exclude a term. The order of your terms is important when using NOT. All results that mention the term after NOT will be excluded. NOT should be used sparingly, as it can eliminate relevant results. For example, if I want information about the therapeutic uses of magnets but keep retrieving articles about magnetic resonance imaging. Using NOT eliminates magnetic resonance imaging but I may be missing some information. There may have been articles about the therapeutic use of magnets, that just happen to mention magnetic resonance imaging, but those were excluded. You can see this if you can, mentally, replace cat with magnet and dog with magnetic resonance imaging. For this reason, NOT should be used carefully.

magnet NOT magnetic resonance imaging

cat NOT dog

Figure 9.6 NOT Boolean Operator

Filters/Limiters

Filters, aka limiters, may be used to reduce your search results to a more relevant set. You have probably used filters when shopping online. For example, you would use the “Prime” filter in Amazon to search for Prime-eligible items or maybe you only wanted "4 star ratings" or a specific brand so you would click the box to add those filters to your Amazon search to narrow your results.

To locate limiters, enter your search terms and hit search. On the left side of the screen, scroll down to use the limiters. Common limiters are published dates and subject headings. When you use keywords in a database search, the database looks for all the sources that have your keyword in it. You can use Subject Headings to narrow your search. Subject Headings tell the database that you want only sources that have your subject heading as one of the main topics in the source. Of course, sources often have more than one subject heading and you can use as many subject headings as you like.

Do remember, though, that the point of using limiters is not to narrow your results to just a few articles but to narrow your search to enough relevant articles to support your research assignment.

Figure 9.6 CINAHL Useful Limiters

Two of the most useful limits for health sciences students are the Publication Date and English Language filters. For most assignments, you will need information published in the last 5 years. Filtering for English language will limit your results to those written in English.

Figure 9.6 CINAHL Limiters

Activity – Practice a search

Practice a Search

What is a topic in healthcare you would like to know more about? Refer to the previous activity to locate the database CINAHL, and follow these steps to practice a search.

• What keywords should you use? Are there any synonyms you should add?
• Are there any words you can truncate? Where would you truncate?
• Should you try searching a specific field?
• What boolean operators should you use? Remember the OR operator can be used between synonyms, while you may want to use AND to combine different topics.
• What filters should you use? Do you only want recent information? Or only sources written in English?