Searching for Nursing Concepts

1. Searching for Nursing Concepts Health Sciences Library

2. Objectives Upon completion of this module, the participant will: • Understand what steps are involved in researching a nursing concept. • Understand how to search for nursing concepts in Cinahl. • Understand how to search for nursing concepts in non-biomedical databases.

3. Steps in researching Concepts Steps in Researching Concepts To get a complete understanding of a Nursing Concept you should: 1. Look up your concept in dictionaries, encyclopedias and other books 2. Search for nursing concept papers on your topic. 3. Search for other nursing articles on your topic. 3. Search for articles on your concept in other disciplines.

4. Look up your concept in dictionaries & encyclopedias Books To get some basic definitions of your topic, try using dictionaries, encyclopedias and other books first. These will also help in finding synonyms for your topic. For example, your topic may start as “determination” but through your research you may find that the term “motivation” is used more consistently. The next couple of slides will go over how to search your topic in print and electronic books.

5. Search Pegasus Books The library’s online catalog will search through Loyola’s print and electronic book collection. To get to the catalog from the library’s website, click on the link in the upper right corner or the link on the left side bar. If you need help searching for books through Pegasus, consult the tutorial at http://library.luhs.org/hslibrary/resources_for/grad_nursing/findingbooks.htm

6. Search Pegasus Books If you are a distance learner, you may be more interested in simply browsing the titles available electronically. To do this, place your cursor over the E-resources tab and click on the Books and Ebooks link. If you need help searching for books on this page, consult the tutorial at http://library.luhs.org/hslibrary/resources_for/grad_nursing/findingbooks.htm

7. Books There are also an assortment of free encyclopedias online including: ● Encyclopedia Britannica: www.britannica.com ● Encyclopedia.com (a meta site that searches hundreds of encyclopedias at once): http://www.encyclopedia.com/ ● The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/

8. Searching for Concepts in Cinahl Published Concept Papers Next you’ll want to search for nursing concept papers on your topic, if any have been published. Cinahl, the nursing database allows you to search specifically for concept papers. To get to Cinahl place your cursor over the Quick Links tab and choose CINAHL.

9. Published Concept Papers It is important to note that all articles in Cinahl are indexed and given subject headings to signify their “aboutness.” Using these will strengthen your search. Luckily, there are subject headings for concept papers as well. They are: ● Concept Analysis ● Concept Formation ● Concept Mapping ● Conceptual Framework For a basic walk through of what subject headings are and how they are used, use one of the following tutorials: Searching Cinahl Searching Ovid Medline Searching Nursing@Ovid

10. Published Concept Papers The steps for finding concept papers about hope would go like this: Step 1: Search for papers about “hope” Step 2: Search for conceptual papers, using the subject headings in the previous slide Step 3: Combine these results Step 4: Refine search

11. Published Concept Papers Step 1: Search for papers about hope. Type the topic into the search bar and click browse.

12. Published Concept Papers You will be brought to a page with many different subject headings. Choose the one(s) that relates to your topic. If there are none relating to your topic, you may have to go back and try a search with a synonym. If possible, explode your term to also search for more specific and narrowly related terms. Leave the subheadings alone. Then click Search Database. Leave this alone to broaden your results

13. Published Concept Papers Step 2: Search for concept papers You will need to select the following four subject headings used for indexing concept papers: ● Concept Analysis ● Concept Formation ● Concept Mapping ● Conceptual Framework First search for concept:

14. Published Concept Papers Three of the four concept subject headings will be listed. Choose these three and click Search Database. Note that these subject headings will be searched with OR. Leave this to broaden your results.

15. Published Concept Papers You will have to do this process again with “conceptual” to find the fourth subject heading used for published concept papers:

16. Published Concept Papers Choose Conceptual Framework from the list and click Search Database:

17. Published Concept Papers Step 3: Combine your results Note that simply ANDing all of your results at this point is a bad idea. This is because you want your results to include papers about hope and either one or more of the concept subject headings. If you simply combine all of your subject headings your results will only include papers that have all of the listed subject headings, which will be extremely limiting. So first combine your concept terms with OR:

18. Published Concept Papers Then combine these ORed concept subject headings with your topic subject heading with AND, because we want results with both the topic and one or more of the concept terms as subject headings.

19. Published Concept Papers Step 4: Refine your results. Scroll down to see your list of results. There are a number of ways to limit these. A couple helpful limits located on the left side of the results include research articles and date published. For a complete list of possible result filters, click on the show more link.

20. Other Nursing Articles To look for articles in Cinahl that are not concept papers, simply exclude the four subject headings that refer to concept papers. Other Nursing databases to use include Nursing@Ovid and Nursing Reference Center. Refer to tutorials for further help on: Accessing Articles: Using Cinahl: Using Nursing@Ovid: Nursing Reference Center:

21. Non-Nursing Articles To view a list of all of our databases at the Loyola Health Sciences Library, place your cursor over the E-Resources tab, then Databases, and then click on View All Databases.

22. Non-Nursing Articles Here are a few popular databases: ● Academic Search Premier: A little of everything. ● AMED: Complementary medicine. ● Business Source Elite: Business. ● ERIC: Education. ● Medline: Medicine. ● PsycINFO: Psychiatry and psychology database. On the next screen, click on the link ‘Alphabetical list of databases’ which leads to the following listing:

23. Ask a Librarian! • If you need help finding information on your concept, contact a Research Services Librarian at (708) 216-9192 or email researchservices@lumc.edu. We’re here to help you! • You can also ask the librarian to do a literature search for you here and be emailed back a list of citations.