Nursing

This page contains a list of the top-ranked Nursing journals, as well as a list of databases. If you're looking for databases, don't forget about the Best Bets box on the Getting Started page!

  Tips for Searching in CINAHL

• In the basic search, the limiters “research” and "peer-reviewed articles" may be very useful.
• There is an article type “research instrument”, but it doesn’t pull up many results. Check the tab "Research Instruments" on this guide for tips on finding research instruments in nursing.
• Limit your results to the last five years for the most current information. 
• In advanced search mode, you can limit by age group and to “evidence-based practice” (use with caution – it means the article is about evidence based practice). Faculty, in particular, may be interested in the “first author is nurse” limiter.   
• If you are having a problem pulling up a link to an article that has been posted on WebCampus, the link may be missing the EX proxy prefix. An example of a link with the prefix is:  http://ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cin20&AN=2011438637&site=ehost-live
  • Try adding "http://ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/login?url=" before the link
  • In Ebsco databases such as CINAHL, you can find the correct URL by clicking on “permalink” on the right side of the page with the full record.

  Tips for Searching in PubMed 

• The journal references that are in PubMed are also in Scopus, which is easier to search. But, many faculty tell their students to search PubMed because you can do  more complex searches.

• PubMed is free and indexed on Google—but you must go into PubMed through the library in order to have access to our subscriptions.

• You can do complex searches on PubMed, including subject terms (MESH) and limit your results by things such as article type, age group, species, etc.

• One reason that researchers may not like PubMed is that it is not easy to tell if we have access to the full text.  From the search results, you have to click on the title of the article and go to the page with the abstract in order to see the “UNLV find text” link.

Note: The “UNLV find text” link doesn’t  always work from PubMed, especially from off-campus – if it isn't working check the A-Z list of e-journals (https://unlv-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/jsearch?vid=UNLV&lang=en_US), or even try to get the article from Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/).

• Not everything in PubMed is peer-reviewed, though most journal articles are. Don't assume! Look closely.

• You CAN export references from PubMed to RefWorks. It’s not intuitive, but it is possible. Mark the citation and send it to “citation manager” – then copy the result, open RefWorks, and import it there (using the “from text” option).