University of Southern Maine

CON 321- Health Related Research (Claiborne)

Introduction | Reference Sources | Indexes & Databases | Internet Resources | Writing the Paper

For assistance in locating information on any health topic, please contact Sheila Johnson (sheilaj@usm.maine.edu or 780-4690), Nursing Department Liaison, USM Glickman Library, Portland; Evelyn Greenlaw (evelyng@usm.maine.edu or 753-6541), Lewiston Campus Library; or Maureen Perry (mperry@usm.maine.edu or 753-6546) Lewiston Campus Library.

Library Services / Locate Books

Library Services

Library Card

Your USM picture ID is also your library card. Go to the Circulation desk at any USM library to get it activated. Your library barcode is the small red number beginning with 2502200.

Library Home Pages

http://library.usm.maine.edu

Library Research Assistance

Reference librarians and their assistants are available to give you expert help you with any question that you may have about your library assignments and research. To contact them:

For help in person go to the Reference/Information Commons service desk at any USM campus library. For virtual assistance, click: Ask a Librarian to obtain voice mail numbers, or to send an IM or e- mail question.

Request Journal Articles  

Click adjacent to database search results to locate an electronic or print article. If article not available: Click Submit an Interlibrary Loan Request to request a copy. When article is available, you will be notified by e-mail in 3-5 working days . To retrieve electronic article, from library home page, click Interlibrary Loan (Illiad) and login. Select View/Download Electronically Received Articles. If not using Article Linker go directly to Interlibrary Loan (Illiad) link on library home page. Please do not use interlibrary loan to request articles from print journals that the library already owns. For detailed instructions, review the Linker Tutorial

Locate Books

Books are useful for selecting a topic, and providing background information.

• Search the URSUS catalog to locate books at USM and other University of Maine System libraries.
• Note: For information on using the catalog, consult the URSUS tutorial.
• Can’t find your title in URSUS? Try MaineCat ( Maine libraries) or WorldCat (hundreds of US and worldwide libraries)

These resources are useful when you need an overview or introduction to a topic, or when you want brief, factual information. For a more comprehensive list, consult the Nursing subject guide.

Dictionaries

Health Care Terms
POR Reference RA423 .S545

Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary

Other Resources

Encyclopedia of Health and Behavior
POR Reference R726.5 .E53

Encyclopedia of Mental Health
GOR Reference RA790 .E53

Encyclopedia of Nursing Research
POR Reference RT81.5 .E53

Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine
GOR Reference RC1206 .O355

Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health
POR Reference RT21 .G353

Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
Provides general medical information for health professionals

Journal articles are the most current sources of information, and many are based on recent nursing research. The easiest way to find articles on your topics is to search an electronic index ( database). Most of your nursing instructors will require you to use scholarly journals as vs. magazines. So how do you tell the difference? Consult scholarly, popular, and trade periodicals for information about these distinctions.

Frequently your instructors will also require that you use peer-reviewed journals. Not certain what this means? To find out, consult What is a Peer-Reviewed Journal?

The Database Search Tips will help you to develop an effective search strategy for your topic.

Select one or more of these databases to locate articles on your health topics:

NURSING/HEALTH/MEDICAL and RELATED DATABASES

Database	Contents	Locate Thesaurus Terms	Locate Research Articles	Locate Peer Reviewed Articles
CINAHL 1982+ (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) Updated Weekly	All aspects of nursing and allied health in over 1,835 journals, doctoral dissertations, selected nursing books, educational software, and audiovisuals. Also includes publications of the American Nurses Association and the National League for Nursing.	Consider Explode if a term option	Check:	Check:
Health Source, Nursing/ Academic Edition	Provides more than 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. Coverage of nursing and allied health is particularly strong.		In Find box, Type: (research or study or studies). Add to other terms.	Check:
MEDLINE 1966+ Updated daily	Published by the National Library of Medicine. Covers over 4,800 journals, and includes all areas of clinical and experimental medicine, nursing, health administration, health care system and other health fields.	Consider Explode if a term option	Type: research. Click box adjacent to term. Select Explode. Note: If too few results, delete research terms from search statement. Type (research or study or studies)	Peer review option not available. Most research articles will be in peer-reviewed journals
PsycINFO 1887+ Updated weekly	Covers information in nearly 2,000 journals about the psychological aspects of related disciplines such as medicine, nursing, sociology, education, and other areas. Excellent for topics like health behavior, health attitudes and mental health.	Consider Explode if a term option	Type: research. Select experimentation. Note: If too few results, delete experimentation from search statement. Type (research or study or studies)	Check:
SPORTDiscus 1887+ Updated Monthly	Covers all aspects of sports including biomechanics, coaching, fitness, physical therapy, physiology, and recreation.	Consider Explode if a term option	In Find box, Type: (research or study or studies). Add to other terms.	Check:

Tutorials

The University of Nebraska has an excellent Medline Tutorial

For help in searching CINAHL, check USM's tutorial, or the University of Florida Guide

Check with your instructor before using Internet resources. Some will prefer that you use the pre-selected sites listed in your course material. Others will want you to use library databases exclusively.

When selecting Internet resources it is important to evaluate the quality of any websites that you use. Consult the USM Library’s Evaluating Web Resources guide, or Evaluating Web Pages (UC Berkley) for evaluation criteria. The National Cancer Institute has an excellent guide on How to Evaluate Health information on the Internet. The following is a selected list of websites that you may find useful. For a more comprehensive list consult the Nursing subject guide.

Evaluating Research / Evidence Based Research

Evaluating Research

Alberta Association of Registered Nurses: Position Papers
Provides links to full text information on the nursing research process. Includes Defining the Question; Searching for Relevant Research; Critiquing the Research; and Determining Relevance.

BMJ Online
Online version of the British Medical Journal. Includes an article on Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research) and Papers that summarize other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

Evidence-Based Nursing
The electronic version of the journal Evidence Based Nursing.  Contains links to evaluations of qualitative research studies and systematic reviews of treatment/prevention.

Evidence Based Research

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
The primary source of federal support for research on problems related to the quality and delivery of health services. The mission of AHRQ is to support, conduct, and disseminate research that improves access to care and the outcomes, quality, cost, and utilization of health care services. The research sponsored and conducted by the Agency provides information that enables better decisions about health care.

National Guideline Clearinghouse
Comprehensive database of full-text evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents. You can browse the guidelines by disease/condition, by treatment/intervention, or by the name of the submitting organization.  Guidelines are abstracted into a standardized format and are easy to compare.

This section will apply if you are writing a paper or completing an assignment that requires you to cite your resources.

Citation Styles

Accurate, properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies are indicators of good academic research, and the ethical/legal use of information. The standard citation style for nursing courses is APA (American Psychological Association).

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
POR/GOR Reference BF76.7 .P83 2001
LEW Reserve BF76.7 .P83 2001

Using American Psychological Association (APA) Format (Updated to 5th Edition) (Purdue University Online Writing Lab)

Plagiarism

USM Academic Integrity Policy

Plagiarism: What it is and How to Recognize and Avoid it (Indiana University)

Created by: Sheila Johnson
Last Updated: 05.14.2007