Nursing Online Programs

Start your search by deciding which keywords to use and how to combine these keywords into a search query (the string of words entered in the search box). 

You are probably familiar with using the search engine Google. When you search in Google, it puts an "and" between each word entered into the search box. For most databases, you will have to tell the database how you want the words to be combined. This is done with Boolean Operators which are "AND," "OR" and "NOT." These words tell the database how you want the search terms to be combined.

AND - combines terms so that both terms must appear in the item to appear in the results list

OR - expands the terms so that one of the terms must appear in the item to appear in the results list. Use this for synonyms or alternative spellings. Think OR means mORe.

NOT - excludes the terms so that if the term appears in the item it will not appear in the results list.

(Need more examples?  Visit the CINAHL (Ebsco) Searching with Boolean Operators help page.)

Enter your keywords and place one of these Boolean Operators between them to make a search query.

Examples:

• nursing AND self-care
• color OR colour
• therapy OR rehabilitation
• (bats OR Chiroptera) NOT baseball

Then combine concepts into a search query.

You can use this search strategy/query template to help create a strong search.

             Concept 1 (__________________________ OR __________________________)

AND      Concept 2 (__________________________ OR __________________________)

AND      Concept 3 (___________________________OR___________________________)

Watch the video below for more information on building a search strategy.

(Video length 6:50)

Track your searches with a search log. You can use the document linked below to help you track your searches. 

Use the tutorials linked in the guide below to learn how to do a search in various databases. Look for "Using Databases." 

Stop words are words that the database has been programmed to ignore in a search string or query. 

Avoid using these stop words in your search query:

• of
• the
• at
• which 
• on

Focus on combining keywords or short key phrases (tip: put quotation marks around a phrase).

Tell the database what you want by using the filters. You already know what you want when you did the pre-searching exercises. Your assignment may also have specific directions about what sources to use.

Use the database's filters to make your results list more specific and conform to what sources you need.

The most commonly used filters are

• Published date
• Peer-reviewed (scholarly) sources
• Type of source (Journal, Newspaper, Conference Paper, etc.)
• Language
• Subject terms 

Try adding some of these special characters into your search 

• quotation marks - use quotation marks around a phrase to keep those words together in the search.
  • Example: "physical therapy" searches for the whole phrase 
• parentheses - use parentheses with your Boolean Operators to let the database know which to search first and what to keep together.
  • Example: (bats OR Chiroptera) NOT baseball searches for bats or Chiroptera first and then NOT baseball.
• truncation - use the asterisk (*) after the root of a word (the root word will need to be at least 4 letters) to search for multiple endings to that word. 
  • Example: nurs* will search for nurse, nurses, and nursing
• wildcard - use a wildcard character for searches with unknown characters or multiple spellings. Each database will use different characters for wildcards (check the "help"s section of the database) but the most popular are the question mark (?), the hash mark (#), and the exclamation mark (!).
  • Example: wom?n will search for women and woman

Note: adding truncation may have unintended results for example searching for univers* = universe, universal, university...

You should also use subject headings to create a more powerful search. A subject heading is a word or phrase assigned to a topic Information is organized in databases by subject headings. An item in a database is tagged with the subject heading to describe what the item is about. Subject headings are controlled vocabulary meaning that the term is assigned to describe the topic. Not every concept will have a corresponding subject heading and subject headings are different in different databases.

For example, pressure injury, pressure wound, pressure sore, and pressure ulcer are all terms used interchangeably. A subject heading designates one term or phrase to describe this topic.

The collections of subject headings you will use in health sciences are

• CINAHL Subject Headings --used in CINAHL
• Medical Subject Headings or MeSH --used in PubMed and other medical databases
• Library of Congress Subject Headings or LCSH -- used in the library catalog 

Using the example of "pressure injury, pressure wound, pressure sore, and pressure ulcer" the subject heads are

• CINAHL Subject Headings: (MH "Pressure Ulcer")
• MeSH: "Pressure Ulcer"[Mesh]
• LCSH: Bedsores

Using a combination of subject headings and keywords makes your search query more powerful.

• For example using MeSH: ("Pressure Ulcer"[Mesh]) OR ("pressure injur*" OR "pressure wound*" OR "pressure sore*" OR "pressure ulcer*" OR bedsore*)

The resources linked below demonstrate using subject headings in CINAHL and PubMed.

Note: Subject headings can also be problematic as these terms do not change very often. Subject terms are often biased, especially when describing people. It is possible that an item may be tagged with a subject term that is antiquated. Librarians work to get these terms updated with the authorizing body but it takes a lot of time and effort so the change is not as fast as we would like. 

Reference tracking (also called pearl-growing or snowballing) is another search method. This is when you use references from one source to find more sources. When you find an article that is on your topic, look at the references section to determine if there are sources that would be good for you to use for your project. If you find sources that you'd like to use, search for them to get the full text from the library. This can be especially helpful when you find a systematic review on your topic as reviews have extensive reference sections. You can also search for articles that cited that article. Both Google Scholar and PubMed offer "cited by" features. (Tip: PubMed also recommends "Similar Articles" but these articles are not always within the filters you have set.)