LibGuides: Nursing Resources at Baystate: Journals / Databases

Journal Collection

To see if the Library & Knowledge Services at Baystate owns a particular journal, click on the link below:

Journals A to Z
Catalog of journals and ebooks

Evaluating Research

Here are some articles/ resources to help you critically appraise an article:

A Nurses' Guide to the Critical Reading of Research
Ingham-Brookfield R, Aust J Adv Nurs, 2008
Critiquing a Quantitative Research Paper
Includes useful explanation of statistical tests. From the Ochsner Medical Center in Louisiana.
How to Critique a Research Study
Framework from the American Nurses Association

Scholarly Databases

Scholarly, bibliographic databases enable you to search the published medical and nursing literature for peer-reviewed content.

CINAHL
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health) searches the nursing literature from 1981 to the present. There is some overlap with PubMed/Medline, but CINAHL includes some nursing journals that are not found in Medline.
ClinicalKey for Nursing
Includes key nursing journals and textbooks from Elsevier. Integrates with Clinical Skills.
PubMed / Medline
Medline is the National Library of Medicine's main bibliographic database. One of the best places, along with CINAHL, to search for nursing and medical literature. NOTE: if you would like to limit your PubMed search results to nursing journals only, include the following list of journals in your search strategy: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/queries/nursing_strategy.html
Nursing @ Ovid
Use the Ovid interface to simultaneously search Ovid Nursing Resources and MEDLINE content.
Scopus
A larger database than Medline and CINAHL, Scopus includes journals that pertain to both biomedical and basic sciences. Scopus also has unique tools to help with tracking and analyzing research (e.g. author and journal metrics, setting up search/journal alerts).

Point-of-Care Databases

Point-of-Care resources contain synthesized information to help provide quick answers to clinical questions.

UpToDate
Point-of-care information updated frequently by experts in the field.
UpToDate Lexidrug (formerly Lexicomp)
Well-referenced drug information.
Natural Medicines
Focused on herbal supplements and integrative medicine.

Learning To Use the Library Databases

For information on how to use these databases to find relevant information, listed below are links to online tutorials from the publishers:

PubMed/ MEDLINE
- Using PubMed for EBP (self-paced tutorial)
CINAHL
OVID SP (MEDLINE or PsycINFO)
Scopus

Also, feel free to call the library at 413-794-1865 with any questions you may have about using these databases. And if you would like an overview of the all the library resources relevant to your project or daily work, a reference librarian would be happy to meet with you!

Database Comparison

	PubMed	Scopus	PsycINFO	ERIC	CINAHL
Coverage	1946 -	1966 -	1880 -	1966 -	1937 -
# Journals	5,600	20,000	2,500	1,000	5,000
Developer	NLM	Elsevier	APA	Dept. Educ.	EBSCO
Controlled vocab.	Yes	Limited	Yes	Yes	Yes
Updated	Daily	Daily	Weekly	Monthly	Weekly
Citation analysis	No	Yes	No	No	No
Strengths	Most current, detailed searching	Wider range, citation analysis, grey literature	Detailed searching	Detailed searching, grey literature	Detailed searching, grey literature
Focus	Biomedicine, Health Sciences	All sciences	Psychology, Behavioral Health	Education	Nursing, Allied Health