LibGuides: Nursing DNP: Doctorate of Nursing Practice: Databases

Off-Campus Access to Databases and E-books

When you click on a database link on campus, you will go directly to the database. When you click from off-campus, you will be prompted to log in.

Medical Subject (MeSH) Terms

MeSH is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles for MEDLINE/PubMed. MeSH terminology provides a consistent way to retrieve information that may use different terminology for the same concepts. MeSH subject headings are used in the OhioLINK Book Catalog and in the PubMed and Medline article databases.

If you do not know a specific heading to search, you may find it more helpful to start with a Keyword search, or use the NLM MeSH Browser to explore available headings.

Learn More about MESH
Taking a few moments to learn about the MESH vocabulary may save time when you begin to search for medical information.
MeSH Browser
Use the MeSH Browser to find an appropriate MeSH search term.

The MeSH Browser provides an excellent means for searching MeSH to find an appropriate Descriptor. For example, if you are interested in "SARS" [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome], a search of the MeSH Browser will retrieve all MeSH terms containing the text word "sars", including synonyms and other entry terms. In this example, the user will see SARSVirus on the list, which will have additional information.

PubMed or MEDLINE?

What's the Difference Between MEDLINE^®, PubMed^®and PubMed Central?

PubMed is the freely accessible online database of biomedical journal citations and abstracts created by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM®).
PubMed Central is an archive of the full-text biomedical journal papers available online without a fee.
MEDLINE is one part of PubMed. Approximately 5,400 journals published in the United States and more than 80 other countries have been selected and are currently indexed for MEDLINE. A distinctive feature of MEDLINE is that the records are indexed with NLM's controlled vocabulary, the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®).

In addition to MEDLINE citations, PubMed also contains:

In-process citations which provide a record for an article before it is indexed with MeSH and added to MEDLINE or converted to out-of-scope status.
Citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing (when supplied electronically by the publisher).
Some OLDMEDLINE citations that have not yet been updated with current vocabulary and converted to MEDLINE status.
Citations to articles that are out-of-scope (e.g., covering plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and general chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed with MeSH for MEDLINE.
Citations to some additional life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral® and receive a qualitative review by NLM.
Citations to author manuscripts of articles published by NIH-funded researchers.
Citations for a subset of books available on the NCBI Bookshelf (a citation for both the book and each chapter or section of the book).

NLM Fact Sheet: MEDLINE, PubMed, and PMC (PubMed Central): How are they different?

Medical Image Databases

WebPath Internet Pathology Laboratory
From University of Utah this source includes over 1900 images along with text, tutorials, laboratory exercises, and examination items .
Public Health Image Library (CDC)
The imagery showcased in the PHIL is historic in nature; the contents depicted, though appropriate at the time a photograph was captured, may no longer be appropriate in the context of the current time period, and is not to be viewed as a source of the most current public health information.

Nursing Databases

CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive nursing and allied health research database, providing full text for more than 770 journals and indexing for more than 4,600 journals.
Some full-text coverage dates back to 1937. Total number of records is approximately three million. Also provides offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals, and book chapters. Dates covered: 1960s-present (plus some older content).
Health Source Nursing/ Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
Health Source Nursing/Academic Edition is a trusted full-text database covering nursing and allied health topics, including pediatric nursing, critical care, mental health, nursing management, medical law and more.
It provides researchers, allied health professionals, nurses, and medical educators with access to full-text scholarly journals focusing on many medical disciplines. It provides indexing, abstracts, and full-text for hundreds of nursing and allied health journals, many of which are peer-reviewed.

Medical Databases

MEDLINE with Full Text This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE with Full Text provides full text for top biomedical and health journals. These journals contain information needed by doctors, nurses, health professionals and researchers
Subject Headings help users effectively search and retrieve information and follow the structure of the Medical Subject headings (MeSH) used by the National Library of Medicine.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 20 million citations for biomedical publications in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and preclinical sciences.
Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Dates covered: 1800s-present. This public resource is not included in OneSearch

Consumer Health & Alternative Medicine

Consumer Health Complete This link opens in a new window
CHC is designed to help users gain an overall understanding of key topics across the health and wellness spectrum — from mainstream medicine to complementary, holistic and integrated medicine.
CHC provides content covering all areas of health and wellness from mainstream medicine to the many perspectives of complementary, holistic, and integrated medicine. Includes full text for 250 health reference books and encyclopedias.
Health Source Consumer Edition This link opens in a new window
Collection of health information providing access to full-text consumer health magazines. Includes searchable full text for current health pamphlets and covers a wide variety of subjects.
Database features information on specific diseases as well as overall health topics. Additionally, with Health Source: Consumer Edition, users have access to current health pamphlets and Merriam-Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary. Subjects include fitness, nutrition, diabetes, aging, women’s health, and children’s health.

Multi-disciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's most comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals
This database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage Dates: 1984 –
Electronic Journal Center (EJC) This link opens in a new window
OhioLINK’s Electronic Journal Center (EJC) contains over 32 million full-text articles in 10,000 journals from large publishers to small presses
Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Many of the library research databases contain citations linking to full-text articles in the EJC. Dates covered: 1800s-present.
Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center (ETD) This link opens in a new window
ETD Center is a free, online database of Ohio's undergraduate, masters and doctoral theses and dissertations from participating OhioLINK member schools.
It contains the abstract for all included theses and dissertations. The full-text is also available if it was submitted.
ProQuest Dissertations & Thesis A & I This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses in the world, with 2.4 million entries.
Over 930,000 dissertations and theses are available in PDF format, and most include free twenty-four-page previews. Dates covered: 1800s-present. This database is not included in OneSearch
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A component of the Web of Knowledge database platform. Includes the following suite of databases for coverage across the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities:
Science Citation Index Expanded (1965-present); Social Sciences Citation Index (1965-present); Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present); Conference Proceedings Citation Index: Science (1990-present); and Conference Proceedings Citation Index: Social Science & Humanities (1990- present). Dates covered: 1965-present. This database is not included in OneSearch

Psychology and Sociology Databases

APA Psycinfo This link opens in a new window
Contains over 3 million records devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral sciences and mental health. Includes abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations.
Journal coverage includes international material selected from over 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages. Dates covered: 1920s-present (plus some older content).
APA PsycNET This link opens in a new window
APA PsycNET contains publications from the American Psychological Association. Subscriptions include access to content from APA Books, published 2017-present, and APA PsycArticles from 159 journal titles.
The APA is the largest professional association of psychologists in the United States, working to advance the psychological sciences across society.
Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection This link opens in a new window
Psychology database containing full text from 400 journals, with total journal/magazine coverage exceeding 560.
Provides information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry, psychology, mental processes, and observational and experimental methods. Dates covered: 1970s-present (plus some older content). Included in OneSearch
SocIndex with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive and high quality sociology research database.
Includes over 2.1 million records, providing full text for 860+ journals (dating back to 1908), 830+ books/monographs, and 16,800+ conference papers. Abstracts more than 1,300 core journals as well as 3,350+ additional journals. Encompasses all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of sociology, including: abortion, criminology and criminal justice violence; demography; ethnic and racial studies; gender studies; marriage and family; substance abuse and other addictions; rural and urban sociology; social development social structure; social work; sociological research and theory; and many others. Also features over 25,000 author profiles per the most prolific, most cited, and most frequently searched-for authors in the database. Dates covered: 1903-present. Included in OneSearch
Sociological Collection This link opens in a new window
Provides coverage of more than 500 full-text journals, including nearly 500 peer-reviewed titles.
Covers all areas of sociology, including social behavior, human tendencies, interaction, relationships, community development, culture, and social structure. Dates covered: 1930-present. Included in OneSearch

Related Databases

AHFS Consumer Medication Information This link opens in a new window
Provides over 1,000 drug information monographs written in lay language for consumers. Conforms to Dept. of Health and Human Services and FDA guidelines for provision of consumer information.
Updated monthly. Produced by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Includes Spanish translations. Not included in OneSearch
MedicLatina This link opens in a new window
Collection of medical research and scientific journals from Latin American and Spanish publishers. Subject areas include neuroscience, cardiology, nephrology, biomedicine, clinical research, and pediatrics.
Also included are topics of human reproduction, clinical pathology, cancer research, and hematology. MedicLatina contains a complete table of contents and PDF full text for peer-reviewed medical journals in the Spanish language
Food Science Source This link opens in a new window
Covers twenty-nine key food industry and market reports, as well as tens of thousands of additional articles, benchmarks and best practices in food science and nutrition, selected from trade and industry publications.
Included in OneSearch

Open Access Databases

What is Open Access?

"By Open Access, we mean the free, immediate, availability on the public Internet of those works which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment – permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software or use them for any other lawful purpose." More from SPARC

BioMed Central: The Open Access Publisher
This site gives full-text access to 223 peer-reviewed open access journals in the fields of medicine and biology. All articles published by BioMed Central are archived and available in PubMed Central.
Medscape Journals
Access to selected articles from 15 medical journals; from WebMD.
DynaMed Weekly Update
DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals for use primarily at the point-of-care. Clinically-organized summaries for more than 3,200 topics. Not the full subscription database.
Medknow Publications
Select "print" rather than PDF for free access. Medknow Publications is a publisher for peer-reviewed, online/print+online journals in the area of STM. Medknow is the largest open access publisher publishing on behalf of learned societies and associations.
TRIP
Trip medical database - A smart, fast tool to find high quality clinical research evidence

Evaluating articles

When looking for articles on evidence based practice, you will want to give thought to the hierarchy of evidence.

Systemic Review (a synthesis of quasi- experimental or correlational studies) or Meta-analysis. ( a review of randomized controlled trials)
Randomized controlled trial. (experimental study)
Controlled trial without randomization (Quasi experimental)
Case controlled (correlational or cohort study (descriptive)
Systemic reviews of descriptive or qualitative studies
Descriptive or qualitative study
Opinions of authorities and/or reports of expert committees

Interlibrary Loan Articles

We offer free interlibrary loan for articles that are not available in our databases.

Please be aware that although articles often arrive quickly, both interlibrary loan books and articles can take ten days or more to arrive. Also, please make sure that you need the type of information you are requesting-check currency and whether it's an article, opinion piece or dissertation. If you need something immediately, it may be better for you to use something that is immediately available in full text. If you need help finding materials, the reference librarians will be happy to help

Interlibrary Loan Article Request Form

Leadership Databases

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains references to more than 1,300 journals plus indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886. Subject areas include marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance, and economics.
Additional full-text, non-journal content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses, faculty seminars (videos), and more. Dates covered: 1960s-present.
Education Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides coverage for a wide range of topics, including adult education, continuing education, literacy standards, multicultural education, secondary education, higher education, and distance education.
Also included are topics of religious education, instructional media, teaching methods, and school administration. Indexes over 770 periodicals dating back to 1983 and includes full text content from over 350 journals as far back as 1996. Dates covered: 1983-present.
Education Research Complete This link opens in a new window
Covers scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education, including educational specialties, testing, curriculum instruction, administration, policy, funding, and related issues
Provides full text for over 1,400 journals plus indexing and abstracts for 2,300+ other journals. Includes full text for over 550 books, monographs, and numerous education-related conference papers. Dates covered: 1960s-present.

Archer Library

Nursing DNP: Doctorate of Nursing Practice: Databases