Research Guides: Nursing Guide: NSC 890

Library FAQs

Here two library FAQs that may be helpful in finding studies to support your PICOT question:

Additionally, Check out 7 Steps to the Perfect PICO Search

Databases for NSC 890

Remember that while some databases, like CINAHL, have limiters which target particular types of research studies, you can always use the type of study as a search term in addition to your topic: randomized controlled trial, qualitative, systematic review, etc. This will work in any database including CINAHL.

CINAHL Ultimate
World's most comprehensive nursing & allied health research database, offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association. Includes full text for hundreds of journals and books/monographs as well as indexing for more than 5,000 journals and the full text of more than 130 Evidence-Based Care Sheets.
Cochrane Library
Collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
MEDLINE (EBSCOhost Web)
Find articles about biomedical, health, and biological topics. Includes indexing for 5,000 of the world's leading biomedical journals.
APA PsycINFO
A comprehensive, international database covering the academic, research and practice literature in over 1,900 leading psychological, psychiatric, and related publications.
Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
A great place to start your search for both popular and scholarly articles on almost any topic. It contains a large number of journals, the majority of which are peer-reviewed, from numerous subject areas and goes as far back as 1865.

Other Considerations

Librarians will be happy to help coach you in your searches, by suggesting databases, search terms, limiters, etc. Sometimes we demonstrate searches to model search techniques that you can use in the future. Our goal is to help you become self-sufficient so that you can find evidence-based content throughout your professional life.

Once we have helped you start some searches, it’s very likely that the resulting articles will differ in quality; as with any search, some will meet your requirements and some will be less useful. This is the point where you will need to do some digging and exercise your critical thinking skills. The level of research you are currently performing can be both time-consuming and sometimes frustrating; but it is always worthwhile!

Levels of Evidence from Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt (2015). Evidence-Based practice in nursing & healthcare (3rd ed.).

Hierarchy of Evidence for Intervention Studies

Type of evidence	Level of evidence	Description
Systematic review or meta-analysis	I	A synthesis of evidence from all relevant randomized, controlled trials.
Randomized, controlled trial	II	An experiment in which subjects are randomized to a treatment group or control group.
Controlled trial without randomization	III	An experiment in which subjects are nonrandomly assigned to a treatment group or control group.
Case-control or cohort study	IV	Case-control study: a comparison of subjects with a condition (case) with those who don’t have the condition (control) to determine characteristics that might predict the condition. Cohort study: an observation of a group(s) (cohort[s]) to determine the development of an outcome(s) such as a disease.
Systematic review of qualitative or descriptive studies	V	A synthesis of evidence from qualitative or descriptive studies to answer a clinical question.
Qualitative or descriptive study	VI	Qualitative study: gathers data on human behavior to understand why and how decisions are made. Descriptive study: provides background information on the what, where, and when of a topic of interest.
Opinion or consensus	VII	Authoritative opinion of expert committee.

Evidence Based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare by Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (used at the graduate level by EKU's department of Nursing)

Cochrane Library

When using the Cochrane Library, which is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence, you will specifically search two: the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. I recommend searching them separately. To do so, access the database at https://libguides.eku.edu/cochrane, select Choose Databases, uncheck all that don't apply, click OK and start searching.