Searching with Nursing @Ovid

1. Searching with Nursing @Ovid Health Sciences Library

2. Objectives Upon completion of this module the participant will understand: • Why searching with subject headings is beneficial. • How to search Nursing@Ovid with subject headings. • How to limit a search and access the results.

3. What is Nursing@Ovid? Nursing@Ovid is a database with abstracts that contains more than 400,000 records in the field of nursing. Over 1000 new records are added each week. The database focuses on core specialties for the nurse in practice, education, research and administration. It also includes proprietary controlled vocabulary that, along with an associated nursing lexicon, meets the specific needs of nursing and allied health professionals of all types. It is designed so that it can search additional databases, including Cinahl and Pubmed.

4. Nursind@Ovid Basics To access Nursing@Ovid from the Health Sciences Library website, place your cursor over the Quick Links tab and click on Nursing@Ovid.

5. Nursing@Ovid Basics Often our first instinct is to write out a search phrase like we might on Google. But this will often confuse the database and you will get few or irrelevant results.

6. Nursing@Ovid Basics Breaking up your research question into different topics not only makes the job easier on the database, it allows you to conceptualize your search more clearly. For example “Can music therapy improve sleeping patterns?” Becomes: + Music Therapy Sleeping Patterns

7. Nursing@Ovid Basics Conceptualizing your research question in this way may bring to mind further concepts that will greaten your search results. + Music Therapy Sleeping Patterns Music Sleeping Disorders Singing REM cycles

8. Nursing@Ovid Basics So how do we combine all of our concepts into one search?

9. Nursing@Ovid Basics If you do a keyword search the database will simply look for the same words in articles regardless of if they are being used with the same concepts as yours or not.

10. Nursing@Ovid Basics Luckily an actual person goes through the articles and gives them all subject headings to label the articles’ “aboutness”. This may seem like an old concept, but using subject headings creates a concise and consistent way to do research. …and we don’t need to use the actual card catalogs anymore.

11. Nursing@Ovid Basics Subject Headings are often thought of as resembling tree branches. Notice how subjects narrow into more specific concepts.

12. Searching Here’s an example of using subject headings to research the effects of music therapy on sleeping. We’ll start by entering “sleep” in the search box. Note that starting with “sleep” instead of “sleeping patterns” will yield a broader range of results. Click Search.

13. Searching We’re presented a list of subject headings that deal with sleep. To learn about a particular term, click on the scope note icon and a definition will be displayed.

14. Searching To view how a subject heading has been placed within the hierarchical structure, click on one of the linked terms.

15. Searching To select the terms you’re interested in tick the box to the left of them. Check the box to the right (if possible) to also search for all the terms under it. This is called “exploding.” For example, by exploding the term “sleep” we’re also searching with the terms under and indented from it. It’s best practice to begin a search by exploding all of your terms if you can to keep your search results broad.

16. Searching Once you have selected all of the terms you want to search with, click Continue. If you select multiple terms for the same concept, they will be combined with OR so that articles with one or more of the subject headings will be collected.

17. Searching We still have to combine the music therapy aspect of the search. So type music therapy in the search box and click Search.

18. Searching After going through the same process as before, we can decide which subject terms to use for Music Therapy. Click the box on the left of a term to select it. Keep the Auto Exploded box checked. If you need to view the hierarchy of a term, click on it. If you’d like to see a definition of a term, click it’s scope note. Then click Continue.

19. Combining Terms The results screen will only have the results from the Music Therapy Search; we need to combine it with the sleep terms. By selecting both terms and searching with AND we are telling the database to find articles with subject headings from both searches: Music Therapy AND (Sleep or Sleep Disorders or etc.)

20. Results The results displayed will be the ones in the bottom-most area of the Search History. Note the number of results. To display an older search click on the display link.

21. Results Use Limits to focus your search results Common limits are listed under the search box. Select Additional Limits to view all available limits.

22. Results To view the abstract and other information about an article, click on the Complete Reference link. If Ovid provides PDF access to the article, click on the PDF link. To view articles that cite an article, click on “Find Citing Articles.” If there isn’t a PDF, don’t give up, you can still get the article! Click on the “Find It @Loyola” link.

23. Results After clicking the “Find IT @Loyola” link you will be brought to a page that looks like this. If the library has access to the article in another database you will see one or more links that will bring you to the article in another database. If Pegasus is the only link listed, this means the library may only have access to the article in print. Click on the Pegasus link to see what years the library has in the particular journal.

24. Results If we do not have access to the article, we will buy access to it for you by borrowing it from another library. This is called interlibrary-loaning. It usually only takes about a day or two. To interlibrary-loan an article fill out the form located here on our website:

25. Ask a Librarian! If you need any further help using Nursing@Ovid, don’t hesitate to contact a librarian. We’re here to help you! (708) 216-9192 researchservices@lumc.edu We will also do a search for you and email you a list of citations if you like. To do this, fill out the form here: