NURS 341 - Teschendorf
Nursing Theory I Library Class Help Page
**Note, the textbooks Health Promotion Throughout the Life Span and Medical Surgical Nursing: Assessment and Management of Clinical Problems are available on reserve at the library, so they may be checked out for several hours at a time***
**Note 2: Also check out the NURS 324 webpage that has hints for finding information on nursing theory.Starting your Research
You may want to start off by gathering background information from encyclopedias and other reference books. Consider using:
Stat!Ref: This database searches the contents of many medical reference books.
Ebrary is a collection of many online books that may prove to be helpful. For more information on how to use Ebrary, click here.
Online Reference Resources: This is a collection of online reference books (mostly encyclopedias). Of particular interest for this class are the collection of Health & Medical encyclopedias and handbooks, as well as Psychology, Social Work, and Sociology resources. Search through multiple encyclopedias at the same time by using the Gale Virtual Reference Library
After gathering background information on your topic, you will want to focus your search in general and research databases to find articles on your topic. When doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on to use databases and other online resources licensed by FSU. Simply use your MyFSU username and password to log-on. For more information on off-campus database access, click here.
Finding Articles using FLITE Databases
Stat!Ref
As stated above, Stat!Ref is an excellent starting point for researching medical topics. Enter your search term into the search box and you will obtain a rank-ordered list of results taken from various medical encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other medical reference books. A very helpful feature of this database is the Related Concepts box to the left of the results that will provide you with synonyms for your topic. These related concepts or synonyms can be used to enhance your searches in this database, as well as the other databases.
Click here for a Stat!Ref Database Guide.
CINAHL
The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) currently gathers information from more than 1800 journals. Use the CINAHL Headings subtab to get more subject-specific information on various topics. When you have found your subject heading, you may click on it to break your topic down by subdivision. Click on the refine search tab to add limits such as peer-reviewed or publication date limits. You can narrow and expand your search using the options available in this database.
PubMed
This is the largest biomedical database, with over 16 million citations. Search using keywords and then limit your search if necessary using the limits tab, related articles link, or selecting the Review tab to see only review articles. Another highly useful resource linked from PubMed is Consumer Health, also called Medline Plus that provides reliable information oriented towards patients.
Click here for a PubMed Tutorial.
General OneFile
This is a general database that will be useful for searching many subject areas. For General OneFile, the default search is a subject guide search. In the subject guide search you can only search one term at a time. If you are having difficulties finding the proper subject term, switch to the Basic Search or Advanced Search and perform a keyword search, then select a pertinent article to find the proper subject heading. Also use the Basic Search or Advanced Search if combining search terms. In the Advanced Search you can limit your articles to particular journals, full-text, peer-reviewed, etc.
Health & Wellness Resource Center
Find information from medical encyclopedias, journal articles, pamphlets, videos, and more using this database that is filled with information oriented towards health care consumers. This is a nice place to get a general overview of different diseases and conditions, as well as medications.
Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles
In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.
Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See the example below:
Sample Journal Article Link-Out:
Evaluating your Articles
Before requesting articles from interlibrary loan, please review the abstract and make sure that the article is on-topic. Also, please insure that the article is in a language that you speak, as some databases, such as PubMed index many non-English articles that have abstracts written in English. After you have evaluated the topical coverage and language of the article, please do not hesitate to request it through interlibrary loan if it is not available on campus.
Books
Books may be found in the Online Catalog. You can search by keyword, subject, title, etc. Below are lists of books retrieved through keyword and subject searches:
•Nurse Patient Relations
•Maternity Nursing
•Neonatal Care
•Pediatric Nursing
•Child Development
•Human Lifecycle
•Aging
•Geriatric Nursing
•Women's Health
•Men's Health (with some women's health mixed in)
•Reproductive Health
•ebrary Online Books: Search by keyword to find interesting e-books.
Other Resources on Reproductive Medicine/Women's Health
•Global Library of Women's Medicine: A freely available database on women's medicine.
•POPLINE: A freely available database on reproductive health.
Getting Library Help
• Call us at the oval information desk: (231) 591-3602
• E-mail the reference desk or e-mail
Ali.
• Chat with us
Other Useful Library Links
Library Homepage
Find Articles: Look for articles using FLITE's databases.
Find Journals: Look for journals by doing title searches.
Find Books and More: Look for books, videos, and other library holdings.
APA Citation Style Guide: Learn basics about APA style, a prevalent citation format in the medical field.
Refbase: A tool you can use to help you format your citations in APA style.
Refbase Tutorials: Learn how to use this citation management tool.
Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315
Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.
Last update: Sept 1, 2009