CINAHL Plus with Full Text: A Crib Sheet
NOTE: There is also a PowerPoint presentation that covers the key points (but not all) of this guide.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- How to Access CINAHL Plus with Full
Text
- Sample Record
- How to Search CINAHL Plus with Full Text
- Using Advanced Search
- Combining Search Terms
- Limiting Your Search
- Sample Record
- Subject Searching and Explodes
- Using the Indexes of Searchable Terms
- Cited References
- Using the Search History to Combine Sets or Previous Search Results
- Use HotLinks to Get More Information
- Getting the Results: Printing, Downloading, Email
- How do I find out if the Library has the item I need?
- What if the Library doesn't have the item I need?
Introduction
CINAHL Plus with Full Text is the enhanced online version of Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Designed to meet the information needs of nurses and allied health professionals, CINAHLPlus with Full Text is made available to HSU through EBSCO Publishing's EBSCOhost platform. It indexes virtually all English-language nursing journals, publications from the American Nurses' Association and the National League for Nursing, and primary journals from allied health fields. The allied health fields covered include: Athletic Training, Audiology, Cardiopulmonary Technology, Dental Hygiene, Emergency Services, Health Information Management, Medical Assisting, Medical/Laboratory Technology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Physician's Assistants, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Therapy, Social Service in Health Care, Speech-Language Pathology, and Surgical Technology. CINAHL Plus with Full Text also includes pertinent articles from the biomedical, education, behavioral science, management, and popular literature.
Materials indexed include journal articles, selected pamphlets, selected books, dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice for nursing specialties, audiovisuals, educational software, and selected poems and cartoons. Foreign language nursing & allied health journal articles are included when English abstracts are provided. Over 4,500 journals are indexed as of October 2011 -- indexing can cover as far back as 1937. A list of journals with dates of coverage is linked from EBSCO Publishing. Searchable cited references have been included since 1994 for over 1,360 journals.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text provides full text of over 770 journals
and 275 books/monographs, plus legal cases, clinical innovations, critical
paths, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials. There
are also Evidence-Based Care Sheets and Quick Lessons available in full
text from the search screen - simply click on the 
or the 
links at the top of the search screen to access these items. Other items
indexed in CINAHL Plus with Full Text may be available in
full text through HSU Library either electronically or in print form. See
How do I find out if the Library has the item
I need for more information.
How to Access CINAHL Plus with Full Text
CINAHL Plus with Full Text is available at HSU for searching via the EBSCOhost interface. You may use computers in the Library, any campus computer lab or your home workstation (if you have web access) to search CINAHL Plus with Full Text. You may connect directly to CINAHL Plus with Full Text or follow the procedure below:
- Using Internet Explorer, Firefox or another web browser, click on the Location box and type the Library's URL (address): http://library.humboldt.edu. The Library's Home Page will be loaded and you may then click on the Articles & Databases link and then on Nursing & Health in the By Subject listing.
- Click on CINAHL Plus with Full Text and the system will connect you to the EBSCOhost search page for CINAHL Plus with Full Text. This may take a few minutes so be patient.
- If you are using a computer from off-campus, you will be prompted
for authentication information. Enter your campus web email login and
password. Click "Login" and you should be able to get into CINAHL
Plus with Full Text. For more information, watch our video: Access
the Library Databases from Off-Campus.
*** Please note that you may access HELP screens by clicking on the
icons on the CINAHL Plus with Full Text search page.
Sample Record for a journal article (Note: links are inactive)
Note that each part or field of the record is identified and you may specify which field you wish to search.
How to Search CINAHL Plus with Full Text
Using Advanced Search
The default screen is the Advanced Search screen which is seen below:
Simply type your search term(s) into the search boxes. Please note that you can have CINAHL "Suggest Subject Terms" by checking the box above the search boxes. (See Subject Searching and Explodes for more detail on subject terms aka CINAHL Headings). If desired, you may choose the field(s) you want to search from the pull-down boxes. If you do not specify a field(s), Title, Abstract, and Subject Headings (both Major and Minor) will be searched. You must also indicate how you want the search terms combined (see Combining Search Terms for an explanation of AND, OR, NOT). The connectors NEAR, WITHIN may be used to indicate the order and proximity of search terms (see Combining Search Terms for details).
ENTER SEARCH TERMS: Enter your search terms in the search boxes,
select the field and click on the
button
next to the box. You may search by word, word root, or phrase.; e.g.,
diabetes
gastro*
patient controlled analgesia
- You may truncate terms to search word root(s) and variations in spelling as shown in the table below:
- FIELD: You may select the Field or part of the record you wish to search by using the pull-down menu. Default fields are Title, Abstract, and Subject Headings (both Major and Minor). You may search the entire record by choosing TX All Text. If you wish to specify the field or part of the record that is searched, use the pull-down menu.
- INDEXES: If you wish to browse the terms or words contained
in a field, click on the Indexes link in the pull-down menu under
above the search box. The Browse an Index page appears.
Use the pull-down menu to choose an index to browse, type in the term(s),
and click on the 
button. If the term(s) you are seeking does not appear on the resulting
page, use the Previous and
Next links
to scroll the index. This is especially useful if you are uncertain
of how to spell the term(s), author's name(s), etc. Select the terms you
wish to add to your search by checking the boxes and choosing how you
wish to add them.
|
|
|
|
|
(asterisk) |
|
(searches gastroenteritis, gastroenterology, gastrointestinal, etc.) |
|
(at the end of word) |
|
(searches needles, needled, etc. but does not search needle or needlestick) |
|
# |
|
(searches the British labour as well as the American labor) |
|
(within a word) |
|
(searches woman as well as women) |
Combining Search Terms
The following connectors or operators can be used to combine concepts in a search statement:
|
(Note: these are NOT case sensitive) |
|
(Note: capital letters added for emphasis only - lower case may be used) |
|
|
All terms must appear in the same record. Narrows a search. |
|
|
|
At least one of the terms must appear in a record. Commonly used to link synonymous terms. Broadens a search. |
|
|
|
The first term must appear in each record but the second term cannot
appear in any record. Narrows a search.
Please note that using NOT will eliminate records that have BOTH the first and second terms -- be careful when using NOT because you may eliminate relevant records. |
|
|
NEAR (N#) |
Terms must appear within # words of each other and in any order. Narrows a search. |
(elder or elderly must be within 2 words of abuse in any order) |
|
|
Terms must appear within # words of each other and in the order entered. Narrows a search. |
delirium W2 cancer |
You may combine search terms/boxes by selecting AND, OR, NOT
from the 
pull-down
menu between search boxes.
Limiting Your Search
If you wish to limit your search to certain year(s), language(s), scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, full text articles , etc., scroll down to the Limit your results: section of the search screen. BEWARE: If you check the Full Text box, only full text articles in the CINAHL database will be retrieved and you will eliminate articles in other journals available in full text through HSU Library. Below is a sample of the limits available. More options are available than are seen here.
Select the feature(s) you wish to limit (publication
type, English or other language(s), evidence-based practice, etc.) by
using the box(es) and/or selecting a category from the menus. After selecting
your limit features, click on the
button at the top (or bottom) of the page.
Journal Subset: Please note that you may use Journal Subset to limit your search to Nursing journals only as seen below:
Subject Searching and Explodes
The easiest and best way to search for information on a particular topic is to search the CINAHL Headings by clicking on the Suggest Subject Terms box above the search box and typing your topic into the search box. The CINAHL Headings is the list of terms CINAHL indexers use to assign subject headings to the articles, books, dissertations, etc., which are entered into the CINAHL Plus with Full Text database. Using these subject headings will help you get the most relevant results on your topic.
You may now view this five-minute captioned video tutorial from EBSCO on subject searching using CINAHL Headings or you may read the rest of this section. If you have watched the video, you may now skip to the next section on Using the Indexes of Searchable Terms.
Here is an example using septicemia as our subject.
First type septicemia into the first search box and check the Suggest Subject Terms box as seen below:
Now hit
, you will get a listing that looks like this:
Click on the Scope Icon
to see the
entire Scope note and/or definition for the term(s) on the CINAHL
Headings pages. Based on the Scope
note(s), you can now select the term(s) you wish to include in your
search by clicking on the box before the term(s). In addition, you may specify
that the subject headings or term(s) be the Major Focus of the article
or reference by clicking on the Major Concept box following each
term.
You will note that Sepsis has a box marked Explode after it in the list above. This indicates that Sepsis has more specific (or narrower) terms under it in the hierarchical structure of CINAHL Headings. If you click on Explode, you will automatically "OR" all of the narrower terms and include them in your search. It is a good idea to see what term(s) will be included by going to the full information by clicking on the Sepsis link. You then get the screen seen below:
Information includes where Sepsis appears in the hierarchical listing (or tree) of CINAHL Headings as well as more specific(narrower) terms (Bacteremia, Fungemia, Neonatal Sepsis,and Shock, Septic), and broader terms(Infection). Please note that you can also click on boxes that will Explode or include all of the narrower terms (Bacteremia, Fungemia, Neonatal Sepsis,and Shock, Septic) in your search as well as making Sepsis the Major Concept (or major focus) of the references retrieved. All terms in the list above that are followed by a + sign have more specific terms underneath them that may be seen by clicking on the term.
You may also use the powerful Subheadings
(qualifiers) feature of CINAHL to refine your search.
Simply click on the check box before your subject heading and a list of
subheadings will appear on the right side of the screen as seen below. If
you want to know what the subheading covers, click on the Scope
Icon
and a scope note or definition will appear. If you do not specify a subheading,
all subheadings will be included. Once you have selected your heading and
subheading(s), click on 
to include them in your search.
You may repeat this process for other subject headings. For example, you may want to search for the topic of septicemia in hospitals. Search for septicemia as above and select the preferred term, Sepsis, by checking the box before it. You could then browse for hospitals by clicking on the Browse Additional Terms link at the bottom of the page. Put hospitals into the browse box as seen below:
Click the
button and the CINAHL headings list will appear with Hospitals checked
off. You may select the Explode or Major Concept box(es)
as we did above for Sepsis as well as select subheadings to refine
your search. Remember that all subheadings will be searched if you do not
specify them. If you choose to explode hospitals, all types of hospitals
will be included in the search. The search including both Sepsis
and Hospitals appears on the right side of the screen as shown
below:
Select whether you wish to combine the terms using AND or OR
and then click on .
In this case we selected AND. The search results containing BOTH
sepsis (exploded and as major concept with BL/CO/DI subheadings)
and hospitals (exploded) will be displayed.
Using the Indexes of Searchable Terms
You may use the Indexes link on the
menu to search for author names, terms you don't find in the thesaurus, etc.
It is recommended that you search the index when you are unsure of the spelling
or format of the term, name, etc. For example, when we search for the author
"MaryAnne Levine", we don't know how CINAHL formats
the first name. Does CINAHL use initials or the entire name? Choose
the author index using the pull-down menu and search the last name and first
initial as seen below:
and click on .
You will then get a list of author names as seen below:
Click on the checkboxes before the desired name(s) on the list and then
click on
to search for articles and other items written by the person(s). Since CINAHL
Plus with Full Text uses initials of authors, it is a good idea
to add the author affiliation (e.g., Humboldt State) to the search as well
so you won't get articles by other author(s) with the same initials. You
may use the pull-down menu next to the search box to select Author Affiliation
as seen below:
Click on
and only those publications by authors with the name "levine m"
OR "levine ma" which also have the author affiliation of "Humboldt
State" will be retrieved.
Cited References
CINAHLPlus with Full Text has included cited references
since 1994. Citations are included (when CINAHL has the publisher's
permission) for nursing, allied health and health sciences librarianship journals.
You may search the cited references by clicking on the Cited References link
on the pull-down tab (above the search
boxes). You may search cited author, cited source, cited title,
cited year, or all citation fields. If you wish to search for
cited references by subject, use the all citation fields search box.
When you view the results from your cited references search, you may see
the citing articles for references of interest by marking
the checkboxes and clicking on the 
button.
If there is a Cited References(#)
link in the list of results from doing a search or from finding citing articles,
click on it to see the list of references that appeared at the end of that
article. You may then find related articles by marking checkboxes for references
of interest and clicking on the 
button. The resultant records are sorted by relevance, based on the greatest
number of shared references.
Using the Search History to Combine "Sets" or Previous Search Results
Each time a search term(s) and/or phrase is searched by hitting the
button, the results are displayed on the screen. If you wish to revise the
search or add terms to the search, click on the Search
History/Alerts link above the list of results. All the terms
or search statements you have entered since you logged on are displayed.
You may combine the sets of results by clicking on the box by the desired
sets/search statements and then clicking on the Search with AND or
Search with OR button. Remember that AND specifies
that all terms must appear in the same record while OR
specifies that at least one of the terms must appear in the record.
See Combining Search Terms for further
explanation of the operators AND and OR.
For example, you are looking for articles on hysterectomy as a form of treatment for endometriosis. You search the term endometriosis first (in the default fields) and then you do a search in the same fields for the truncated hysterectom* (includes hysterectomy, hysterectomies, etc.). If you click on Search History/Alerts, you get the following screen:
There are 3989 "hits" for hysterectom* and 1559 "hits"
for endometriosis. Click on the box beside each term and choose
the Search with AND button. S2 and S1
will then appear in the search box at the top of the screen. When you click
the
button, you get 117 "hits" for the combination. You would get
the same search results if you simply typed S1 and S2 (Search
ID #) into the search box at the top of the screen.
You can also use the Search History screen to edit/refine your search by using the Edit links and Delete Searches button. Simply click on Edit following the search statement you want to edit. The search statement for editing will appear on the search box and you may make changes before searching again. If you wish to delete a search statement, simply click on the box before the search you wish to delete, hit the Delete Searches button and the statement will be removed from the Search History.
If you wish to save the search and/or have EBSCO run your search automatically at a specified frequency, click on the Save Searches/Alerts link and follow the instructions. You will need to set up a My EBSCOhost account if you haven't already done so.
Use HotLinks to Get More Information
The beauty of using a Web-based index such as CINAHL Plus with Full Text is that "hotlinks" are embedded in the records. There are links from the author's name, the subject headings, etc. to other records indexed under that subject heading or written by that author. By following links of interest, you may find additional relevant records without having to enter in more search statements.
Getting the Results: Printing, Downloading, Email
If the desired results are not already on the screen, click on the Search History/Alerts link. All the search statements you have entered will be displayed. Choose the desired search statement and click on the "number of hits" link under Results. A list of records will appear with minimal information (author, title, source, etc.) as shown below:
Display the Complete Record by clicking on the title link for items of interest in order to see the subject heading(s) with subheading(s), abstract or summary, etc.
You may narrow/reduce the number of results of your search by clicking on any category on the left side of the screen and choosing the desired option(s) from the resulting list (s). This will add the selected qualifier(s), e.g., Middle Age and/or Peer Reviewed Journal, to your search.
Go through the results list and ADD the items you want to
a folder by clicking on the 
links. When you are done adding the records you want to a folder, click
on the Folder View link or the 
icon to view the folder contents. You may now choose items you want and
click on 
(if you have a
printer attached to your computer and want a paper copy of the search results),
(to download/save
as file ) or 
(to send the results to your email account) and follow the instructions.
Please note that you may specify the citation format (e.g., APA) when you
print, email or download.
If you plan to use bibliographic management software (e.g., Reference Manager
or EndNote), click on 
to save the selected citations/records to a file formatted for your software.
If you wish to have access to the records in a folder after you leave CINAHL Plus with Full Text, you should click on "To store these items in the folder for a future session, Sign In to My EBSCOhost". This will give you access to a personal area called My EBSCOhost that you can use to collect information you plan on reusing in a future EBSCOhost session. You may save your search and set up search alerts from the Search History once you have a My EBSCOhost account. See EBSCO Support Site for more detailed help.
How do I find out if the Library has the item I need?
If there is a full text link (e.g., html,
pdf) in the citation of interest, click
on it to retrieve the full text of the article, etc. If there is no full
text link, you must determine if HSU Library has the article, book, report
or document cited. Click on the 
button that appears at the bottom of each citation (or in each full record)
and a link to full text availability of that article or book will appear.
This will check our database of fulltext electronic resources as well as
the Library
Catalog and provide a link directly to the article or catalog record
if it is available.
If you are no longer in CINAHL Plus with Full Text and are looking for references you downloaded, emailed or printed, you will need to search the Journal and Newspaper Finder (for electronic and print journals) and/or the Library Catalog. You may check the Library Catalog by searching the title and/or author for books, reports, dissertations, and the complete titles of periodicals (journals, magazines) containing articles of interest. However, HSU Library has many journals and magazines that are not listed in the Library Catalog.
The Journal and Newspaper
Finder, a searchable guide to journals, magazines, newspapers and other
serials accessible online (fulltext) as well as in print format at HSU Library,
is the best way to see if we have a periodical. This list
is also accessible from the Library's home page by clicking on the Journal
& Newspaper Finder link or the 
tab. For example, you have a reference to an article on bicycle helmets
as follows:
If you are still in the CINAHL Plus with Full Text database,
you may click on the
button to retrieve the article. Once you have left the CINAHL Plus
with Full Text database, you will need to search the Journal
and Newspaper Finder for the Journal of Pediatric Nursing
and click on the link. When you click on the FindIt@HSU or SFX link in CINAHL
Plus with Full Text, you get the following results on the "SFX
page":
Journal of Pediatric Nursing is available in paper copy (HSU Library Catalog) (but only for 1990-94) as well as electronically in Science Direct (Elsevier) (for 1995-date). To get this article on bicycle helmets published in 2006, fill in the boxes (if they are blank) with the year, volume, issue, and start page of the article you are interested in. Then click on the Science Direct (Elsevier) link and you will be linked directly to the article. Sometimes you will be taken to a list of volumes/issues for the journal you are seeking. In that case, you will need to find the link to the article by going into the table of contents for the volume/issue of interest.
Note that other "recommended" articles are listed on the SFX
page as well. Click on the
button for any that are of interest to see if the HSU Library has them.
Most government documents prior to 1998 are not listed in the HSU Library Catalog. If you wish to find a government document, consult the guides: How to Find Federal Documents in the HSU Library and How to Find California Documents in the HSU Library. You may also ask a reference librarian for assistance at the Information Desk on the first floor (hours) or in the Humboldt Room, room 308 (hours).
What
if the Library doesn't have the item I need?
If the Library does not have the book, report, document, article, etc.
which you need, you may request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). See
Interlibrary
Loan Policies and Guidelines for more information. Requests may be placed
by logging on to the Interlibrary
Loan System. There are also links to the ILL System from
pages when the HSU Library doesn't have full text. This process can take
as long as TWO WEEKS for books and ONE WEEK for articles so it is a good
idea to begin your research early.
Please be aware that although there is no cost to the student who requests articles through ILL, the Library often has to pay copyright fees which can be costly for medically-related journals. We ask that you be selective when deciding which articles to request through ILL.