LibGuides: Graduate School Library Research: Nursing

Welcome to Nursing Research for Graduate Students

Post-graduate research can be intimidating, but there is help available, starting with your Library Liaison.

My name is Leslie Whitford and I'm excited to go on this research journey with you!

Email me: whifordl@xavier.edu
Make an appointment: https://xavier.libcal.com/appointments/whitford

CINAHL

Searching MESH headings in Medline or CINAHL

Web of Science

Web of Science
1980-present plus citations to older cited references; updated weekly; some full-text

Formerly Web of Knowledge, this database includes Web of Science Core Collection (Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Derwent Innovations Index, Science Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science Edition, and Social Sciences Citation Index), BIOSIS Citation Index, BIOSIS Previews,Biological Abstracts,Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Sciences and Humanities Edition, KCI-Korean Journal Database, SciELO Citation Index, and MEDLINE. You can perform Cited Reference Searching in the Web of Science Core Collection. You can link to Journal Citation Reports and Essential Science Indicators from this platform as well.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text
CINAHL Plus® with Full Text collection of full text for nursing & allied health journals, providing full text for more than 770 journals indexed in CINAHL®. The core research tool for all areas of nursing and allied health literature. Full text coverage dates back to 1937.
Evidence-Based Practice Tip: To limit search results to articles with some level of evidence: Type your search strategy in the textboxes provided. At your search results, click Search Options (in right menu). The Search Options window will open and in the Publication Type selectbox click Research. Then click the Search button.
Evidence-Based Practice Tip: To limit search results to articles with some level of evidence: Type your search strategy in the textboxes provided. At your search results, click Search Options (in right menu). The Search Options window will open and in the Publication Type selectbox click Research. Then click the Search button.
MEDLINE with Full Text
This database includes information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care and pre-clinical sciences. It indexes over 4,800 current biomedical journals. It includes citations from Index Medicus, International Nursing Index, and Index to Dental Literature. It is produced by the National Library of Medicine
Evidence-Based Practice Tip: To limit search results to articles with some level of evidence: Type your search strategy in the textboxes provided. At your search results, click Search Options (in right menu). The Search Options window will open and in the Publication Type selectbox hold down the Ctrl key and click Clinical Trial (and all clinical trial phases), Controlled Clinical Trial, Meta-Analysis, and Randomized Controlled Trial. Then click the Search button.
Ovid Nursing Full Text PLUS
Ovid Nursing Full Text PLUS is a comprehensive single source of premier current journal content from Lippincott. This database indexes and abstracts nursing periodicals with links to the full-text for articles in the journals.
To begin searching, click the Continue button and then Your Journals@Ovid.
Nursing & Allied Health Database‎
Nursing and allied health - journal articles, books, videos, dissertations, etc.
This database offers reliable, comprehensive coverage of the fields of nursing and allied health including journals, video, dissertations, reference books and more

Library Resources: Nursing
by Leslie Whitford Last Updated Mar 5, 2025 961 views this year
NURS-370 Introduction to Nursing Research
by Leslie Whitford Last Updated Mar 5, 2025 36 views this year
NURS-502 Nursing Research
by Leslie Whitford Last Updated Mar 5, 2025 37 views this year

PICO is framework for asking well-worded questions and searching for evidence. The clinical question is worded to identify 4-5 components:

P: Patient or Population – What are the most important characteristics of the patients or people?

I: Intervention or Influence– What main intervention are you considering or what is a potentially beneficial or harmful influence?

C: Comparison – With what is the intervention or influence being compared?

O: Outcome – What is the estimated likelihood of a clinical outcome attributable to a specific disease, condition or injury?

(T): Time – What is the timeframe within which the outcome of an intervention is expected to be measured or observed?

A PICO(T) question sets out your research intent.
Searching in a database will include the major elements of the PICO(T) question, but may include synonyms or other adjustments in language to find appropriate results (keywords and subject terms)

Type of Question	PICO(T) Template
Therapy Treatment Intervention	In _________ (Population), what is the effect of _________ (Intervention), in comparison to _________ (Comparative/alternate intervention) on _________ (Outcome) within _________ (Time)?
Diagnosis Assessment	For _________ (Population), does _________ (Identifying tool/procedure) yield more accurate or more appropriate diagnostic/assessment information than _________ (Comparative tool/procedure) about _________ (Outcome) over _________ (Time)?
Prognosis	In _________ (Population), does _________ (Influence/exposure to disease/condition), relative to _________ (Comparative disease/condition OR absence of the disease/condition) increase risk of _________ (Outcome) during _________ (Time)?
Etiology (causation) Harm	Are _________ (Patients) who have _________ (Influence/exposure/characteristic) compared with those without _________ (Comparative influence/exposure OR lack of influence/exposure) at risk for _________ (Outcome) over _________ (Time)?