Research Guides: Nursing: Find Articles

Nursing Databases

If you need help searching the library databases, contact a librarian in any of the ways listed on our homepage.

CINAHL Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Covers nursing and allied health research. Access to 1,815 active full-text journals, this database covers over 50 nursing specialties. Includes quick lessons, evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, nursing instructional videos, and more.
MEDLINE (via EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Created by the United States National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE is an authoritative bibliographic database, which means it contains citations and abstracts, for biomedical and health journals used by health care professionals, nurses, clinicians and researchers. Because we have other databases with the full text of some of these citations, you will also see full text results if you search through the MCC Library's Medline. If you search it on the web, you may find open access full text articles, too.
Nursing & Allied Health Database This link opens in a new window
Journals, videos, dissertations, e-books, and study paths. Includes more then 1000 video clips from the Medcom Video Training Programs Collection. Can also be searched via ProQuest Central.
Nursing Commons - Digital Commons Network This link opens in a new window
Brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Includes peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
Public Health Database This link opens in a new window
Includes the core literature in the field of public health. Can also be searched via ProQuest Central.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Includes the MEDLINE database plus several million additional citations and abstracts from journals and books in the areas of medical and life sciences. Often links to full-text articles some of which are free.
The Sigma Repository This link opens in a new window
The Sigma Repository (formerly the Virginia Henderson Global Nursing e-Repository) is the only repository solely dedicated to sharing works created by nurses around the world. It is an open digital academic and clinical focused service that freely collects, preserves, and disseminates full-text nursing research, educational, and evidence-based practice materials in a variety of formats and item types. The repository is a resource of Sigma Theta Tau International (Sigma).

Visit the library's A-Z list of databases for a complete list of all of our resources.

Focusing your library search on nursing research

Video contents:

1:07 Searching in the Nursing & Allied Health database

5:13 Finding nursing research using OneSearch

7:37 Searching for nurse authors in CINAHL

9:05 How to use the citations in a review paper to find additional sources

Here are some tips:

1. You can add

AND nurs*

to your keyword search in any of our databases. This will look for some form of the word nurse in the title, abstract, and subject tags of the articles.

2. You can choose "advanced search" in CINAHL and find options to check off for nursing. Choose nursing under Journal Subset and you can check "Any author is a nurse," a box just above the Journal Subset box. In other databases you can choose Nursing and Allied Health as a discipline.

Please ask a librarian if you need help with these strategies.

Searching open access databases for nursing research

Just as with library databases, there are open access databases that have helpful limiters. Watch the video to see searches in these three excellent options.

Video contents:

1:09 PubMed - limiting to nursing journals

5:21 Sigma Repository

9:47 Nursing Commons

1. In PubMed, add AND nurs* and/or check the "Nursing journals" box in your results (see video for demo).

2. Search an open access nursing collection:

All material in the Sigma Repository are "authored by a single nurse, multiple nurses, or a collaborative group that includes a nurse. The nurse does not need to be the lead author."
Nursing Commons is part of The Digital Commons Network, which brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work."

Remember to examine whether the article you find has been peer-reviewed.

Searching for a particular article

When you need a specific article
You might be looking for a specific article that you need to read for class, that another article refers to, or that you found online behind a paywall. This video, and guide (with screenshots) explain how to do that..