Electronic Databases of Interest for Nursing

Last update: 23 May 2011,
by Maureen Bell

To find journal articles on a subject you will need to use one of the databases listed on this page. For help with searching click here

The three specifically nursing databases to which we subscribe are CINAHLwith full text and Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, and Mosby's Nursing Consult

PubMed also has excellent coverage of the major nursing journals.

Newspapers

There may be times when you also need to access newspaper articles, and newspaper databases are listed here.

Australian Databases

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre
The Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre combines Australia and New Zealand specific magazines, newspapers & newswires, reference books, and company information. This database provides local perspectives on current events, business, sports, and many other subjects. Australia/NZ Reference Centre also contains international magazines, reference books, newspapers & newswires.

Australian Bureau of Statistics Website. Statistics Section
Everything on the ABS web site is now accessible free of charge. There's a useful "How do I?" option at the right hand side of the home page.

Informit
Informit offers a wide range of databases and full content publications that deliver Australasian scholarly material published in journals, monographs, conference proceedings and other research material. Informit Plus Text databases include links to thousands of articles from hundreds of leading Australasian journals. Subject areas covered include arts, education, health, law, business, science, and humanities and social sciences.

The Informit selection of Health databases is an excellent source of Australian material - much of which is not indexed elsewhere.

Libraries Australia The National Bibliographic Database
Libraries Australia is a web-based service for Australian libraries and their users. It provides access to the national database of material held in Australian libraries, known as the National Bibliographic Database. Libraries Australia enables you to search for an item and find out which library in Australia holds it. Use the Help option on the toolbar to find hints on effective searching.

To search for journals, use the Journals limit. For short titles such as Nature, use Advanced Search and change all of these to exact match or starts with. With the Advanced Search option you can restrict your search to books or journals held by libraries in South Australia.

International Databases

Academic OneFile
Contains peer-reviewed, full-text articles in HTML and PDF format from more than 8000 journals with extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature, and other subjects; intended primarily for academic researchers.
Time span: 1980 -

Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary database, which provides full text for nearly 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 titles. This database is updated on a daily basis.

BIOSIS Previews
BIOSIS Previews is the world’s most comprehensive reference database for life science research. It covers original research reports and reviews in traditional biological and biomedical areas. It also covers references to primary journal literature on vital biological research, medical research findings, and discoveries of new organisms.
Time span: 1980 -

CAB Abstracts
Index with abstracts to journal articles as well as books, conferences, reports, theses etc. Subjects covered include animal sciences, veterinary sciences, dairy science and technology, plant breeding and genetics, crop sciences, crop protection, environmental and natural resources, forestry, post-harvest science and technology, agricultural biotechnology, biodegradation, agricultural engineering, agricultural economics, rural development and sociology, leisure, recreation and tourism, human nutrition, tropical diseases and medical parasitology.
Time span: 1910 -

The Campbell Collaboration
The Campbell Collaboration collaborates closely with its sibling organization, the Cochrane Collaboration, which prepares and maintains systematic reviews of the effects of interventions in health care. The Campbell Library of Systematic Reviews provides free online access to systematic reviews in the areas of education, criminal justice and social welfare.

CareSearch, palliative care knowledge network
CareSearch is a free online resource of palliative care information and evidence. All materials included in the website are reviewed for quality and relevance. It contains a number of PubMed searches, plus instructions on how to create a palliative care search in your own specific subject area.

CINAHL with full text
Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), is equivalent to the printed Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. It indexes English language nursing journals, as well as publications of the American Nurses' Association and the National League for Nursing. The primary journals from the following allied health disciplines are also included. Allied Health Disciplines, Cardiopulmonary Technology, Dental Hygiene, Emergency Services, Medical/Laboratory Technology, Medical Assistant, Medical Records, Nutrition and Dietetics ,Occupational Therapy, Optometry, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Physicians' Assistant, Podiatry, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Technology, Social Service in Health Care, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Surgical Technology.
Publications are selectively indexed for the following fields:
Behavioral Science, Biomedicine, Consumer Health, Health Sciences Librarianship, Health Services Administration, Law & Legal Issues in Health Care.
Time span: 1983 -.

Basic help for searching CINAHL is here

Cochrane Library
Cochrane Library provides rapid access to high quality information about the effects of health care.You'll find some background notes on the Cochrane Library and Evidence Based Medicine on my public health page.

CSA Sociological Abstracts
The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.
Time span: 1952 -

Current Contents
see
ISI Current Contents Connect

Embase
Indexes an additional 2,000 + biomedical titles not currently covered by Medline. Although it contains Medline data, it is not an alternative to PubMed, which includes recent material not yet indexed for Medline, and not available through Embase.

ERIC
The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature. The ERIC database corresponds to two printed journals: Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). In addition, ERIC provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.

Health Business FullTEXT Elite
This database provides full text coverage for nearly 450 well-known administrative journals. Health Business FullTEXT Elite provides comprehensive journal content detailing all aspects of health care administration and other non-clinical aspects of health care institution management.
Time span: 1965 -

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
This database provides over 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. It also features abstracts and indexing for 800 journals.
Time span: 1975 -

ISI Current Contents Connect
Current Contents Connect is a weekly table-of-contents database which presents the contents pages of current issues of the world's scholarly and technical journals, books, and proceedings literature. It is the best database for very recent articles, and has a useful email alert function.
Time span: 1998 -
Help is available from Current Contents Connect Quick Reference Card , and Current Contents Connect Tutorial

ISI Web of Knowledge
ISI Web of Knowledge allows you to cross-search multiple resources simultaneously. Its resources include CAB Abstracts, Biosis Previews, Current Contents Connect, Inspec, Zoological Record, and Web of Science, as well as a version of Medline.

Medline
see
PubMed

MDConsult
MD Consult is designed to answer clinical questions, and to help physicians stay abreast of recent medical developments. It includes the ability to search a range of books, journals, drug information, practice guidelines, and patient information handouts.

Mosby's Nursing Consult
Mosby's Nursing Consult is designed to answer clinical questions, and to help nurses stay abreast of recent developments. It includes the ability to search a range of books, journals, drug information, practice guidelines, and patient information handouts.

PsycARTICLES
PsycARTICLES™ is a database of full-text articles from journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. Most APA journals now go back to Volume 1, Issue 1; the earliest journal is Psychological Review, which was started in 1894.

PsycINFO
PsycINFO is an abstract database of psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. The fact that we are accessing it through EBSCOhost means that full text for some journals is available online. PsycINFO covers not only journals (almost all of which are peer reviewed), but also books, and book chapters.

Basic help for searching PsycINFO is here

PubMed (University of Adelaide Customised Version)
Records in the version of PubMed customised for the University of Adelaide have a 'University of Adelaide Online' button - which will allow access to the many thousands of online journal articles available to Adelaide users. You will need to use the link above or the Library's catalogue to access this version.

Notes and tutorials on how to use PubMed can be found here
Detailed notes on searching for evidence based material on PubMed are here.
Instructions for importing references from PubMed into EndNote are here
Click here for a video demonstration

Science Citation Index
see
Web of Science

Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database. It has the broadest coverage available of scientific, technical, medical and social sciences literature, including 15,000 peer-reviewed journals from more than 4,000 international publishers.

Social Sciences Citation Index
see
Web of Science

Social Services Abstracts
Social Services Abstracts provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database abstracts and indexes over 1,406 serials publications and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews.
Time span: 1980 -

Sociological Abstracts
see
CSA Sociological Abstracts

UpToDate
UpToDate is an electronic information resource available via the Web and mobile devices. It aims to provide specific, detailed answers to clinical questions from the office, exam room or bedside. Over 80 million patient-related problems are researched each year with UpToDate.

Web of Knowledge
see
ISI Web of Knowledge

Web of Science
Web of Science is useful for finding articles which have cited a given article, and which should therefore be on a similar topic.
It includes:-
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)
Time span: 1980-
Help for searching Web of Science is at Web of Science Tutorial, and Web of Science Quick Reference Card