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CINAHL - Cumulative Index for Nursing & Allied Health Literature

Cinahl Basics

When doing nursing research, the CINAHL Complete can be your best friend. Nursing research is very specialized and there are some great limiters available from the Advanced Search page that can really help you get the articles you need, more quickly.

  • When you enter the CINAHL database you usually will land on the basic search screen.
  • I recommend clicking on the Advanced Search option under the basic search textbox.
  • By default, only those articles that are full-text will be displayed.  However, they may not all have a PDF attached.  Some articles will only be in html format and other will provide a link to get to the full text in another one of our databases.

Recommended Limiters to focus your search -

  • Peer reviewed
  • Written by nurses
  • Journal Subset:  Nursing
  • Geographic subset:  USA
  • Language:  English
  • Less than 5 years old

Special Features

  • Evidence-based care sheets
  • Quick lessons providing overviews of disease and conditions
  • Research instruments