CINAHL (1982- )

Database Description
Full Text
Searching Thesaurus or Keywords
Fields in This Database:
· Authors and Institution
· Titles and Publishing Information
· Subjects
· Abstract and Other Descriptive Text
· Issue Numbering
· Codes

Search Help: Quick Tips · Basic Searching · Advanced Searching · Find a Copy

Database Description: The CINAHL database provides access to nursing and allied health literature and information from 1982 to the present. This database is published by Cinahl Information Systems, which also produces the print Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. CINAHL subject areas include:

• Nursing – coverage of virtually every nursing journal published
• Allied Health – physical therapy, occupational therapy, emergency services
• Specialized Health – consumer health, alternative therapies, health sciences librarianship

Over one thousand journals are indexed in the CINAHL database. Nursing and allied health journals are indexed cover-to-cover (regular journals), whereas only articles that are germaine to the database are selected from the other journal titles (selective journals). CINAHL journal list.

PRODUCED BY: Cinahl Information Systems.
DATES COVERED: From 1982.
UPDATES: Weekly.

Full Text: Citations in this database are linked to the corresponding electronic full text whenever possible. The link FIND A COPY looks for full text in OhioLINK resources and in some individual library e-journal subscriptions. In addition, CINAHL provides "attached" full text for the following special types of publications:

• Critical Paths (PDF images)
• State nursing journals (plain text)
• Research instruments (plain text)
• Nurse Practice Acts (plain text)
• Standards of Practice (plain text)
• Practice Acts (plain text)
• Clinical innovation records (plain text)
• Some government publications (plain text)

Searching Thesaurus or Keywords: CINAHL has three special options on its search menu:

• Thesaurus: Search your word or phrase in the CINAHL thesaurus.
• Keywords: Search your word or phrase everywhere in the database, except for cited references.
• Keywords plus cited references: Search your word or phrase everywhere in the database, including cited references. Select this option for any field-qualified searches, like those shown in this document.

Option	Keyword or Phrase	Finds
√ Thesaurus	anesthesia	thesaurus terms beginning with the word "anesthesia"
√ Keywords	nightingale tracker	the exact phrase "nightingale tracker" anywhere, except for cited references
√ Keywords plus cited references	nightingale tracker	the exact phrase "nightingale tracker" anywhere, including cited references
√ Keywords plus cited references	(olmstead decision).ti.	the phrase "Olmstead decision" in a title
√ Keywords plus cited references	(martin same mahoney).cit.	Martin and Mahoney in the same cited reference

Fields in This Database

AUTHORS and INSTITUTION

AUTHORS (.AU.): AU encompasses authors, contributors, and editors. Personal names are entered as last name, followed by one or two initials. Forenames are not spelled out. Examples:

Blumenreich GA
Pieper-Bigelow C
Smith AJ Jr
Spaaij CJK
van der Heijden LJM

All words and initials are indexed. In most cases, we recommend searching by surname only. In case of a common surname, include first initial. If you do not know whether a middle initial is used, include the first initial followed by $:

(white d$).au. finds:

White D
White DA
White DP
White DW, etc.

INSTITUTION (.IN.): Institutional affiliation of the first author.

CORPORATE AUTHOR (.CO.): Organization responsible for the work.

TITLES and PUBLISHING INFORMATION

TITLE (.TI.): Title of the article, chapter, book, video, etc.

JOURNAL TITLE (.JN.): Name of journal, spelled out in full, in which the article was published.

BOOK TITLE (.BKTI.): For book chapters, BKTI gives the title of the parent book. Search a book title as BKTI to find the separate citations for the chapters within the book. To find the citation for the book itself, search the book title as TI.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (.CON.): For some books, CON provides the authors and titles of chapters or articles within the book. Search CON if you remember a chapter author or title and want to find the citation for the parent book.

CITED REFERENCE (.CIT.): Authors, titles, and source information for articles or books cited by this article. Search CIT to find articles that cite particular authors or a particular article or book. Your search can consist of author words, title words, date, journal, etc. When searching multiple words, use the "same" operator to specify that those words belong to the same cited reference.

This database contains many cited references. Plain keyword searches may retrieve irrelevant records because of the authors, titles, etc. within the cited references. To enhance the precision of plain keyword searching, a special option was added to this database to search keywords everywhere except cited references. See Searching Thesaurus or Keywords.

JOURNAL ABBREVIATION (.JA.): The standard abbreviation for the journal title.

PUBLISHER (.PUB.): For published materials including books and audiovisuals, PUB contains the publisher name.

SERIES TITLE (.SE.): Title of series in which book was published.

SUPPLEMENT TITLE (.SUPT.): Title of a supplement to a regular journal publication.

SUBJECTS

The fields in this category contain indexing terms from CINAHL's Subject Headings List, which is revised annually.

"Major" subjects describe the most significant topics, or focus, of the document. In the record display, major subjects are preceded by an asterisk *. "Minor" subjects describe concepts which are also addressed in the document, but are not major concepts. In the record display, minor subjects are not asterisked.

Subheadings are terms which cover general, frequently discussed aspects of a subject, such as "adverse effects". CINAHL's indexers link subheadings with subject headings to describe exactly what aspects of the subject the author is discussing. The subheadings that apply to a main heading vary from heading to heading. List of available subheadings to each subject heading is provided by CINAHL and revised annually.

In the OhioLINK system, subject headings and subheadings are typically searched through the system's thesaurus functions. These functions allow users to look for a preferred heading; search, focus, or expand the heading; and select subheadings. "Focus" means retrieving only records in which the heading is a major concept. "Expand" means retrieving records with the heading plus all narrower headings.

Alternatively, if you know the exact subject heading and subheadings you're looking for, you can use the field qualifiers described here for quicker searching.

SUBJECTS (.SU.): SU encompasses both major and minor subjects, plus persons' names as subject. This field contains main headings only, no subheadings. Using SU, you may search either complete subject phrases or individual subject keywords.

anesthesia.su. finds:

Anesthesia
Anesthesia, General
Anesthesia, Local
Anesthesia, Obstetrical

SUBHEADING (.SH.): Each subheading is identified by both a 2-letter code and a spelled-out phrase. Expert searchers sometimes search subheadings in combination with main headings that don't allow those subheadings, in order to retrieve articles that address desired aspects.

analgesia.majt and su.sh. finds:

records that have Analgesia as a major heading, and su (Surgery) as a subheading, although this main heading may not be linked to this particular subheading.

SUBJECT THESAURUS (.SUT.): This field is defined primarily for system use when retrieving subjects through the thesaurus. SUT contains both the main heading and subheading, if applicable. Using SUT, you can search subject keywords or phrases in combination with a specific subheading (use the "with" operator).

SUBJECT THESAURUS, MAJOR (.MAJT.): This field is defined primarily for system use when retrieving subjects through "focus" in the thesaurus. MAJT contains both the main heading and subheading, if applicable. Using MAJT, you can search subject keywords or phrases in combination with a specific subheading (use the "with" operator).

PERSON AS SUBJECT (.PS.): Name of person discussed in the document.

ABSTRACT and OTHER DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

ABSTRACT (.AB.): Omit stopwords when searching AB.

DEGREE GRANTING INSTITUTION (.DGI.): For dissertations or theses, DGI names the institution that granted the degree.

GRANT INFORMATION (.GR.): Funding information including the institution(s) and grant number, if any.

INSTRUMENTATION (.INS.): Names of clinical assessment tools, and instruments used in research studies.

LEGAL CASES (.LEG.): Names of the parties in a legal case and, when available, court case number, place, name of court, and year.

ISSUE NUMBERING

YEAR (.YR.): Year of publication.

MONTH (.MO.): Month or season (and day, if applicable) of publication of the issue. The month is given as a 3-letter abbreviation (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec). Seasons are spelled out.

VOLUME (.VO.): Volume of the journal in which the article was published.

NUMBER (.NO.): Issue in which the article was published.

ARTICLE PAGINATION (.PG.): If you remember the starting page of an article but not the full citation, searching with PG might be useful. Enter the starting page and the truncation symbol $.

CODES

AGE LIMIT (.AGLT.): A phrase describing the human age groups covered by the article, if applicable. Search multiword phrases as the complete hyphenated phrase shown here.

Pregnancy
Fetus
Infant-newborn (birth to 1 month)
Infant (1-23 months)
Child-preschool (2-5 years)
Child (6-12 years)
Adolescence (13-18 years)
Adult (19-44 years)
Middle-age (45-64 years)
Aged (65-79 years)
Aged-80-and-over

PUBLICATION TYPE (.AT.): A phrase describing the type of article or document. Search multiword phrases as the complete hyphenated phrase shown here.

Abstract
Accreditation
Advice-and-referral-website (2001-)
Algorithm
Anecdote
Audiovisual
Bibliography
Biography
Book
Book-Chapter
Brief-Item
Care-Plan
Cartoon
Case-Study
CEU
Chat-groups (2001-)
Classification-Term
Clinical-Innovations
Clinical-Trial
Code-of-Ethics
Commentary
Commercial-website (2001-)
Computer-Program
Consumer-Patient-Teaching-Materials
Corrected-Article
Critical-Path

Diagnostic-Images
Directories
Doctoral-Dissertation
Drugs
Editorial
Equations-Formulas
Exam-Questions
Forms
Games
Glossary
Historical-Material
Individual-testimonial-website (2001-)
Information-website (2001-)
Interview
Journal-Article
Journal-Description
Legal-Cases
Letter
Listservs (2001-)
Masters-Thesis
Nurse-Practice-Acts
Nursing-Diagnoses
Nursing-Interventions

Obituary
Overall
Pamphlet
Pamphlet-Chapter
Pictorial
Poetry
Practice-Acts
Practice-Guidelines
Proceedings
Protocol
Questionnaire-Scale
Questions-and-Answers
Research
Research-Instrument
Research-Term-Definition (2001-)
Response
Review
Search-Strategy (2003-)
Software
Standards
Statistics
Systematic-Review
Tables-Charts
Teaching-Materials
Tracings
Website

ISBN (.ISBN.): The International Standard Book Number of the book.

ISSN (.IS.): The International Standard Serial Number of the journal.

LANGUAGE (.LA.): This field contains the language of publication of an article. The language name is spelled out in full form. Beginning in 1994, non-English materials began to be added to the CINAHL database.

CINAHL UPDATE (.LSUP.): Date this record was added to the CINAHL database, i.e. the weekly update in which this record was released. The date is in the form YYYYMMDD. Before 2001, CINAHL was updated monthly, and the date is in the form YYYYMM.

NLM SERIAL IDENTIFIER (.NSID.): This field contains the number assigned by the National Library of Medicine to identify the Journal in which the document was published. This number, used in conjunction with additional citation information, can be used to order the document from NLM's DOCLINE document delivery service.

PUBMED IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (.PMID.): The ID number of citation for this article in the National Library of Medicine PubMed system.

SPECIAL INTEREST CURRENT AWARENESS (.SC.): The Special Interest (SC) field contains the following special interest current awareness categories. Search multiword phrases as the complete hyphenated phrase shown here.

Advanced-Nursing-Practice
Case-Management
Chiropractic-Care
Consumer-Health
Critical-Care
Dental-Care
Emergency-Care
Evidence-Based-Practice
Gerontologic-Care
Home-Health-Care
Hospice-Palliative-Care
Informatics
Mens-Health
Military-Uniformed-Services
Nursing-Administration
Nursing-Education
Nursing-Language-Classification
Nutrition
Obstetric-Care
Occupational-Therapy
Oncologic-Care
Pain-and-Pain-Management
Patient-Safety
Pediatric-Care
Perioperative-Care
Physical-Therapy
Psychiatry-Psychology
Public-Health
Quality-Assurance
Social-Work
Speech-Language-Pathology-Audiology
Sports-Medicine
Womens-Health
Wound-Care

JOURNAL SUBSET (.SS.): There are two sets of journal subsets, a general subset and a geographical subset.

General List:
Allied Health
Alternative/Complementary Therapies
Biomedical
Computer/Information Science
Consumer Health
Core Nursing
Health Promotion/Education
Health Services Administration
Nursing
Online
Online/Print
Peer Reviewed
Public Health

Geographical List:
Africa
Asia
Australia & New Zealand
Canada
Europe
Mexico & Central/South America
UK & Ireland
USA

SUBJECT LIMIT (.SULT.): This field contains either of two values that describe the population covered by the article: male, female. Searching with SULT is the same as using the checkboxes for these terms on the limiting page.

CINAHL UNIQUE IDENTIFIER NUMBER (.UI.): Record control number assigned by database producer; unique to each record in the database. Searching by UI is a method for returning directly to a record that you have retrieved previously.

February 2005

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