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.  The login screen for our library looks something like this. (NOTE: this is just an illustration)  Use your AU login (the same as for Blackboard or WebAdvisor).

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.

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).

Databases are the most efficient way to find quality articles. It's important to use the most useful database for your particular topic.

Many of the article citations include a link to the full text of the article, in either PDF or HTML format. If there is no full text link for an article, click on    Full Text Finder  to discover if the article is available in full text in another of our databases.  If there is no  or full text link, click on the Interlibrary Loan link to request the article. 

The Search Tips on the Books page are also used for database searching.  

Full Database List

There are many valuable options when searching CINAHL.  To learn moreabout the options, see the Tutorials tab for help with using CINAHL.

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

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

There is an app for some of the EBSCO databases, including CINAHL.