LibGuides: Nursing Resources at Baystate: Nursing 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

Bibliographic Databases enable you to search the published medical and nursing literature for peer reviewed content. Some especially useful ones include:

CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health) - This database enables you to search the nursing literature from 1981 to the present. There is a good deal of overlap with 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. Probably the best place, along with CINAHL, to begin searching the 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.

Health Business - Covers the business aspects of healthcare. Can be searched simultaneously with CINAHL.

Scopus - A database of abstracts and citations in the sciences that includes unique tools for tracking and analyzing research (e.g. author and journal metrics, cited by feature, setting up search/journal alerts).

Point-of-Care Databases provide evidence-based information that is helpful in clinical care. Some especially useful ones include:

BMJ Best Practice and UpToDate - Useful Point of Care tools, each with its own special features.

UpToDate Lexidrug (formerly Lexicomp) - Well-referenced drug information.

Natural Medicines - Great information on herbals and integrative medicine.

Learning To Use the Library Databases

If you are wondering how to best use the library's databases in order to find information, we offer several options.

Call the Reference Librarian at 794-1865 to schedule an appointment if you would like an overview of all of the library resources that could be relevant to your project or your daily work. You can also call with a quick question which might be answerable by phone.

If you have time, feel free to look at these online tutorials that are available for some of the databases that the library subscribes to:

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

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