NURS2231 Adult Health Nursing I Clinical Laboratory

Conducting an effective online search strategy is like following a carefully drawn map.

1. State your Research Topic.  What Nursing Care Intervention are you interested in exploring?
2. Which of the Nursing Databases includes the journals which cover your topic?  Which database primarily includes Nursing Journals?
3. Chose the Nursing Database, CINAHL.  Open the Database and set the parameters or limits. Set the Date Span and Publication Type.
4. Organize your Research Topic into Concepts, such as Population or Health Problem, Intervention, and Outcome.
5. Use the Database Subject Headings or Thesaurus to locate the appropriate subject terms for each Concept.  
   1. Subject terms may need to be made more narrow/specific or more general/broader.
   2. Other Headings may be added.
6. Connect terms with AND or OR.
7. Perform the Search.
8. If the Search Results are not conclusive, you may need to modify your topic and/or use Free Text Terms