Nursing and Health Related Journal Articles
Peer reviewed journal articles, also known as scholarly articles, are written by experts who want to share their research findings with others working in their field. Not sure if you are looking at a scholarly article? This guide can help.
The databases below focus on health related research. If you would like to do a more general search for articles, try the LibrarySearch instead.
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PubMedSearches MEDLINE references and abstracts in life sciences and biomedicine. Use Display Options > Abstract to view MRU full text links. 💡Tip: See the PubMed Help Guide
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MEDLINENote: MEDLINE’s content is also in PubMed, but its interface offers different search tools and extra limits (e.g., qualitative Clinical Queries).
💡 Tip: See the EBSCOhost Quick Start Guide for search tips and useful features.
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CINAHL Plus with Full TextA core source for nursing and allied health research - full text access to many journals, plus tailored search tools. 💡Tip: See the EBSCOhost Quick Start Guide for search tips and useful features.
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TRIP Pro DatabaseA clinical tool used by clinicians to identify and link out to the best available evidence to answer clinical questions. Resources include research evidence, images, videos, patient leaflets, educational courses, and news. 💡 Tip: Get started video tutorials | Search tips from the Trip blog
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PsycInfoContains citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations in psychology and related disciplines. 💡 Tip: See the EBSCOhost Quick Start Guide for search tips and useful features.
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Cochrane LibraryHigh-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
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PsychiatryOnlineFeatures DSM-V-TR® and The American Journal of Psychiatry as the cornerstones of an unsurpassed collection of psychiatric references
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Native Health DatabaseContains bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys, and other resource documents pertaining to the health and health care of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Nations.
Google Scholar Search
Google Scholar is fast and free, but less precise than CINAHL or Medline.
- Includes articles, theses, books, and conference papers.
- Results are broad and not always peer-reviewed.
- Check credibility and nursing relevance for every source.
See the tips below for better searching and visit the Google Scholar help page for more tip including email alerts, citation export and more.
💡 Tip: Connect Google Scholar to MRU Library to see Full-Text @ MRU Library links in your search results.
Google Scholar: Search Tips ▼
- Connect Google Scholar to MRU Library to display Full-Text @ MRU Library.
- Use quotes for exact phrases:
"concept analysis" - Use OR (
|) for synonyms:trust | confidence - Limit by domain:
site:.eduorsite:.ca - Require words in the title:
intitle:"concept analysis" - Wildcard
*for missing words:"nursing * education" - Click Cited by to find newer work built on an article.
- Use the left-side filter to limit to recent publications (“Since YYYY”).
- Scholar is multidisciplinary — double-check that journals are relevant to nursing or clinical practice.
- Open the article to confirm the study type (systematic review, RCT, qualitative, etc.). Google Scholar does not label these.
Tip: Nursing references often have “nursing” in the journal title, or at least one author with nursing credentials.
Video: Google Scholar citation searching ▼
Video: Google Scholar search strategies ▼
Journal literature search tips
Limiting a search to nursing research
A good-enough (but not perfect) way to limit your search to nursing journals is to search for nurs* in the Source (SO) field. This retrieves journals with a version of the word nurse or nursing in the title.
Short video walkthrough from Carrie Price (PubMed & CINAHL, starts at 3:28). Note: old CINAHL interface.
nurs* in the Source (SO) field.
nurs* in the Source (SO) field.
How to tell if an article is nursing research
Quick checks (though always confirm with your professor's instructions)
- Journal title: includes “nursing” (e.g., Journal of Advanced Nursing).
- Author credentials/affiliations: RN, BN/BSN, MN, or School/Faculty of Nursing.
- Audience: written by nurses or for a nursing audience.
Finding articles authored by nurses in CINAHL ▼
Option 1 – Nurse author filters (CINAHL)
- In CINAHL, scroll to the filters.
- Select Any Author is Nurse or First Author is Nurse.
- Add your topic keywords and run the search.
Option 2 – Limit to nursing journals
- Remove nurse-author filters.
- Add
nurs*as a search term and set the field to Source (SO). - Check the full text to confirm author nursing credentials.
Note: Nurse-author filters rely on correct tagging, so some nurse-authored articles may be missed.
Watch this short video walkthrough from FNU Library (video)
