Orientation to Digital Library: CINAHL

You may be directed to the Advance Search screen or may chose it from the basic screen.  The advantage of the Advance Screen is you can do "AND", "NOT",  and "OR" searches.  You can also do immediate filters.  Let us try with the search term "Pediatric Nursing" in the Search Bar (Gold Arrow).  We can immediately apply the filters of "Human" and an "AGE" (Red Arrows).  We will mark "Human" and we will select "Infant 1-23 months" and click on "Search".

After typing "Pediatric Nursing" in the search bar and applying the limiters "Human" and "Infant 1-23 months" in the Advance Search Screen, you are directed to the "Result List" screen (See Below).  You have 653 search results (Red Circle).  To be able narrow the results more, you can "Refine Results" on the left side of the page (Purple Circle).  As you can see, the Current Search tells you what your terms and limiters are currently being used (Green Circle).  You can limit the publication date (Green Arrow), the source type (Red Arrow), and other limiters (Orange Circle).  Each time you add a limiter, the screen will refresh with the new data.   

If you need to have articles that are "Peer Reviewed", CINAHL Complete allows you to limit your search to just those articles.  To do this, you need to be on the "Advance Search" screen.  About half-way down the screen in the right column, is a box labeled "Peer Reviewed" (image below - Yellow Highlighted, Red Arrow).  Check the box and your search will be limited to Peer Reviewed articles.

An abstract is a brief summary of a research article.  It can include the thesis, review and any in-depth analysis of a subject.  An abstract is often used to help a person determine the article's content.  The first lines after the title is the publication information, such as authors, journal, publish date (Figure A, Yellow Highlighted areas).  The abstract follows (Figure A, Red Arrows).  As you read this, you can determine if this is an article you can you.  If you see "PDF Full Text" (Figure A, Purple Circle), then the text is free.  Click on "PDF Full Text" and the entire article will open in PDF format.  If "PDF Full Text" is not there, you will need to request the article from the Librarians (see "Requesting Articles" tab).     If you click on the Title of the article, you will be taken to an article detail screen (Figure B).  This screen will give you more information about the article including the Major and Minor subjects used to index this article (Figure B, Red Arrows).  This information will expand your search vocabulary.  If you are having difficulty locating information, you can review these search terms to determine if one of these would retrieve more articles. You can still add to your folder (Figure B, Purple Circle).  When you are done, you can click Results List (Figure B, Gold Arrow) to go back to your search results.                                                                                                

Figure A

Figure B

CINAHL has a feature that allows you to see how many articles that are cited in the article are available in CINAHL.  If you look at the first article below you will see "Cited References (26)" (Figure A, Yellow Highlighted).  That means that in this article, 26 of the references cited are availed to access in CINAHL.  You can access that information by clicking on the "Cited References" (Figure B). As you can see, you do not get an abstract, however, when you click on the title, it will give you the abstract.   You can add these articles to your Folder and open PDFs. The next figure is "Time Cited in this Database (3)" (Figure A, Red Circle).  This tells you how many times this article was cited in other articles.  In this example, there are 3 articles in CINAHL that used this article.  When you click on that you will get the articles that used this article for reference (Figure C).  You will get abstracts of the articles for you to review.  You can add these articles to your Folder and open PDFs.  You can also see "Cited References" for these new articles. 

Figure A

Figure B

Figure C

As you review your articles, you can send the ones that you are interested in to a "FOLDER".  In the upper right corner of each abstract, there is a "Folder" icon (Figure A, Green Circle).  When you click on it, the folder will turn yellow and that article has been saved to a folder.  On the right side of the screen is a list of your articles in your folder (Figure A, Purple Circle).  When you are ready to review your folder, just click on "Folder View" inside the "Folder has items" (Figure A, Purple Box).  You will be taken to the "Folder Contents" Screen (Figure B).  You can see how many articles you have in the folder (Figure B, Purple Circle).  If you wish to delete any of the articles, you can click inside the small box on the left of the article and hit the delete button (Figure B, Yellow Circle).  You can also print, email, or export the contents in your folder (Figure B, Green Box) to review later or to forward to a librarian.  When you are ready to go back to your search screen, click "Back" (Figure B, Red Circle).

Please be aware that once you leave CINAHL/AHEC, your folder WILL BE DELETED.  This is a temporary folder and it is EMPTIED when you leave CINAHL.  Make sure you email your folder to yourself. 

Figure A

Figure B

Once you found the articles that you need, you can review them.  If the articles are Free (it will say "PDF Full Text" at the bottom of the abstract), then you can click on it and download the PDF.  If it does not say that, you will need to contact Cassie Dixon to request the article.  To do that, there are several steps.  First you will want to forward Folder to yourself.  Just click on the E-mail icon on the right of the folder screen (Figure A, Red Circle).  DO NOT email your folder directly to the librarians.  To be able to request and article, the librarians will NEED to have the following information:  Title of the Article, Authors, Journal the article is published in, Date Published and the PMID (Figure A, Yellow Highlighted).  If you emailed your folder to yourself, you can forward the email to the librarians.  To email the folder,  click the E-mail icon on the right of the screen.   On the E-mail Manager screen you can send yourself the folder contents (Figure B). You can send yourself your search history if you leave the box check (Figure B, Blue Arrow).  This is for your information only.  If you plan on forwarding this information to a librarian, you want to use "Standard Field Format" (Figure B, Purple Arrow).  You will fill in your email address (Figure B, Red Arrow) and subject (Figure B, Green Arrow).  If you mark "Remove these items from folder after e-mailing" (Figure B, Gold Circle), you will DELETE your folder. 

Figure A

Figure B

Here are some additional Hints and Tips for searching in CINAHL:

• By using the Advance Search feature, you can narrow your original search.  You can also select articles that are "Peer Reviewed", "Evidence-Based Practice", or "Nurse is an Author".
• Sometimes less is more - if you are having trouble locating information, make your search terms broader or remove filters;
• Use filters to narrow your results such as Language, Age Groups, and/or Publication Date.
• If you are having difficulty locating articles, try using synonyms for some of the terms (i.e., instead of "women", try "female")
• Your Folder WILL DELETE after you leave AHEC - make sure you either email or export the information. 
• If you request articles from the librarians, it usually takes 2 business days for us to get it.  We will then email you the articles for your review.