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Nursing: BSN Students

Electronic Databases

To find nursing literature, the best places to start are:

  • CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature): Nursing and allied health literature. **CINAHL provides a checkbox that allows you to limit to articles with a nurse as any author or as a primary author.**

  • Scopus: Interdisciplinary database covering more then 14,200 peer-reviewed journals, tracking cited and citing literature. 
  • PubMed: Health sciences articles including clinical, basic sciences, and public health information.  

To view the full list of Himmelfarb databases by subject area, go to "All Databases".

Need help searching the databases?  See Himmelfarb's tutorials page, email the library to be connected with a reference librarian (himmefarb@gwu.edu), or chat with a reference librarian by using the "Ask Us" link on the right side of the library homepage.  

Finding Articles With Nurse Authors

In CINAHL:

On the initial page, before entering your search terms at the top, scroll down to the 'Limit Your Results' section and there are checkboxes you can select for 'Any Author is Nurse' and 'First Author is Nurse'.

In PubMed:

Add "AND (nurs* [affil])" to your search string.  This will limit your results to only those articles which have authors whose claimed work affiliation includes some form of the word 'nurse' (e.g., 'George Washington University School of Nursing').  

Is this Journal Article Peer Reviewed?

A peer-reviewed journal is one in which articles are submitted to researchers who are experts in the field, who evaluate the content, research methodology, and references for accuracy before they are published.

Here are some ways to determine if an article is peer-reviewed:

  1. Search for the journal title (not the article title) online (using Google) and then read about the journal (check the "About the Journal" information).
  2. Search for the journal title in the database, Ulrichsweb:
    • Go to the Himmelfarb Library homepage and click on "All Databases"
    • In the A to Z list at the top of the page, click on the letter "U"
    • Click "Access Online" for Ulrichsweb
    • Enter the journal title into the search box and click on "search"
    • In the search results, look for a referee shirt icon to the left of the journal title ("refereed" is another name for "peer reviewed")

Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Finding Books

To search for a book in the Himmelfarb Library, use the search box at the top of the library homepage, or below this text.

ClinicalKey for Nursing

ClinicalKey for Nursing

Pharmacology Databases

Drug Information Portal: Gateway to selected drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.

Epocrates Essentials: Evidence-based resource providing disease and drug information

Lexicomp: Comprehensive clinical drug information

Natural Medicines: Provides information on dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies.

Tom Harrod

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Tom Harrod
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