Other Resources
- e-JournalsSearch a complete list of all our journals. If you have a citation, use this link to find full-text.
- e-BooksSearch our books; read online and download PDFs.
- LibraLibra is the University of Virginia’s open access institutional repository, the online archive of scholarship created by the University community. It provides a central, stable location for the scholarly output of the University community (journal articles, datasets, theses/dissertations, etc.).
- Directory of Nursing Journals | INANE - International Academy of Nursing EditorsINANE's directory includes a list of reputable nursing journals and their contacts.
- Nursing Theory and FrameworksLooking for more information on nursing theory and frameworks? Follow the link to our guide.
Finding Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov This link opens in a new windowThe U.S. National Library of Medicine's registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.
School of Nursing Resources
Searching for and Appraising Evidence
Looking for more information about how to search a specific database? Check out our database tutorials.
Looking for something that used to be on this page? Check the tabs to the left - content has been organized into subpages.
Learning How to Search for Evidence
Where to search?
First consider what type of information could answer your question.
If you're looking for background information on a topic, consider some of these sources, including Virgo, our library's catalog.
If you need peer-reviewed journal articles on a specific topic, choose databases with appropriate coverage for your topic.
Visit our page for resources on the history of nursing.
Basic Principles of Database Searching
- MIT's Guide to SearchingThis written guide covers the basics of Boolean operators and other search syntax.
- Searching School Video TutorialsCarrie Price's series of 3-4 minute videos offers a great introduction to the principles of database searching from a health sciences librarian.
Database-Specific Tutorials
How to Obtain Full-Text Articles
Database searches provide bibliographic citations - information about articles, such as their titles, abstracts, author names, etc. Sometimes, the full text of an article is also available because we subscribe to the journal that the article is contained in.
Consider installing the LibKey Nomad extension on your browser. This extension makes it easy to obtain PDFs of full-text articles in one click, although it won't work with all databases. Review the "Connecting from Off-Grounds" page for more information about LibKey Nomad and other extensions that will help discover full-text PDFs.
If we don't have a subscription for the journal your article was published in, we can get a PDF of the article for you via interlibrary loan.
Databases
This list includes our most-used databases for performing literature searches and finding articles on nursing topics.
- CINAHL This link opens in a new windowSearches related to nursing or allied health should include the CINAHL database. CINAHL uses the EBSCO search platform, so the user experience is very similar to using EBSCO's PsycINFO.
- EmbaseEmbase is a very large database with specialized coverage of drugs and pharmacology, medical devices, clinical medicine, and basic science. Good coverage of European and other international journals makes Embase a good choice for searches related to quality. Any thorough literature search should include at least one of the large multidisciplinary databases: Scopus, Embase, or Web of Science. Embase also searches Medline, but you can limit your search results to exclude Medline results if you've also searched PubMed or OVID Medline.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar can be a great place to look for background information on your topic, but remember that it can be difficult to tell whether information is peer-reviewed or not.
- Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition This link opens in a new windowProvides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines.
- OVID Medline This link opens in a new windowThe core content of PubMed (Medline) overlaps with OVID's Medline database. Generally, you'll want to choose between searching PubMed or OVID Medline in your literature search.
- Public Health and Social CarePart of Policy Commons, this database includes hard-to-find materials from the front lines of healthcare and social-care providers, researchers, and organizations. Search for white papers, government documents, information from think tanks, and more.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowDoes your topic involve psychology, psychiatry, social sciences, or education? You'll want to include a search of PsycINFO. PsycINFO is offered on the same EBSCO platform as CINAHL, so searching is very similar.
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowPubMed is a large database of biomedical literature - it's a great place to start a literature search, especially if you're not sure where to start. The core of PubMed is Medline, so you should generally choose between searching PubMed or Ovid Medline.
- ScopusScopus is another very large multidisciplinary database. Any thorough literature search should include at least one of the large multidisciplinary databases: Scopus, Embase, or Web of Science.
- Web of Science (WoS) This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science is a broad interdisciplinary database covering medicine, life science, social sciences, and more. Any thorough literature search should include at least one of the large multidisciplinary databases: Scopus, Embase, or Web of Science. WOS also lets you see which articles have cited an article. By entering a key article into WOS, you can investigate the literature on your topic both backward in time (by looking through the article's bibliography) and forward in time (by seeing what other articles have cited the article). This can be particularly useful in understanding the scope of your topic in the literature.
- Alt HealthWatch This link opens in a new windowThis database focuses on the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness.
- List of All DatabasesWe've covered the most often-used databases for nursing research above, but don't forget that HSL users have access to many other databases.
Gray Literature
What is gray literature?
Gray literature is any informational resource that exists outside of commercial publishing.
Gray literature may include sources such as ongoing clinical trials, governmental research, conference abstracts and proceedings, dissertations, theses, and more.
Where should I search for gray literature?
The answer depends on your research question and the type of evidence that could help answer it.
Google Scholar and our pre-filtered Google search limiting results to .gov, .edu, & .org sites are good places to start.
The NIH (National Institutes of Health) guide to gray literature provides links to many other suggested sources for gray literature.
Resources for Finding Clinical Practice Guidelines
PubMed and CINAHL can be searched for guidelines that were published in journal articles.
PubMed: Run your search, then select "guideline" under "additional filters." You may need to refresh your results to apply the filter after clicking "show."
CINAHL: Run your search, then choose "show more" under "limit to" menu on the left side of the screen. Under "publication type" choose "practice guideline."
- Guidelines CentralAccess to current practice guidelines and summaries.
- U.S. Preventive Services Task ForceRecommendations on preventive services. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF or Task Force) works to improve the health of people nationwide by making evidence-based recommendations on effective ways to prevent disease & prolong life.
Consider also searching sites of professional organizations (for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics) or national non-profit organizations such as the American Heart Associations.
Levels of Evidence (Evidence Based Practice (EBP) Research)
The levels of evidence pyramid provides a way to visualize both the quality of evidence and the amount of evidence available. Evidence is broken down into three categories: Critical Appraisal (filtered), Experimental & Observational Studies (unfiltered), and Background Information. As you go down the pyramid, the amount of evidence increases as the quality of the evidence decreases.
Business, Education, Engineering, Academic, and Other Health Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowOffers full text coverage of information in many areas including animal science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women's studies, zoology, and many other fields.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowTopics such as marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Find articles plus financial data, books, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, market, industry, and country reports, company profiles, and SWOT analyses.
- EBSCOhost Databases This link opens in a new windowIncludes the educational database ERIC, EBSCO business, and many others. EBSCO business provides trade publications, company profiles, and information on public and private companies.
- IEEE Xplore
Find articles and other information from the journals, proceedings and standards published by IEEE and by the Institution of Electrical Engineers. Full-text is from 1988 to present with some selected earlier content.
- Oxford Bibliographies - Public Health
Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides across a variety of subject areas. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource directs researchers to the best available scholarship
- Sage Research Methods This link opens in a new window
Sage Research Methods is a methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher.