CINAHL Database – nursing and allied health Exercises
(Advanced Course: Module 5)
Table of Contents:
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Background and Access to CINAHL
Interface Overview: MY EBSCOHOST Account, Search Boxes, Limits, Buttons
Using CINAHL to Search: Basic Concepts, Sub-headings, Advanced Concepts, Results
Display, Limiting Search Results
Saving Results: Creating/Saving Folders, Printing, Emails and Exporting Results and
Saving and Retrieving Search History
Background:
CINAHL (Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature) provides indexing for
2,960 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health. It offers complete coverage of
English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing
and the American Nurses’ Association. The Index covers nursing, biomedicine, health
sciences librarianship, alternative/ complementary medicine, consumer health and 17
allied health disciplines.
You will need access to the HINARI/CINAHL to complete a series of exercises.
1. Finding CINAHL from the ‘HINARI Databases and article searching’ drop down menu.
 Open the HINARI website at www.who.int/hinari
 From the initial page, select the LOGIN hyperlink which will take you to the HINARI
login page.
 When the login page opens, enter your institutional HINARI User Name and
Password into the login boxes and then select the Login button to access the HINARI
site.
 Logging in to HINARI will provide authentication to access full-text articles and other
resources via the HINARI Portal. If you do not register using your institutional User
Name and Password, you will not have access to the full-text articles, only the citations.
 Go to the right column “Search inside HINARI full-text through database and article
searching” option.
 You will find the page with Browse databases drop down menu.
 You will access CINAHL from this menu.
2. Accessing CINAHL
Exercise 1
 From the HINARI login page, enter your institutional HINARI User Name and
Password into the login boxes and then select the Login button to access the
HINARI Portal.
 After entering the HINARI Content page, go to the Search inside HINARI full-text
through database and article searching option in the right column. Select CINAHL
from the list by clicking on the link.
 The CINAHL database will open on the publisher’s website. Click on Sign In to My
EBSCOHost. Then click on Create a new Account. Enter your first and last
names, e-mail address, user name and password (twice) plus a secret question and
answer. Click on the Submit button.
 From the Your account has been created page, click on Continue.
 You now will return to the initial CINAHL page.
3. Searching for citations in CINAHL using the Suggest Subject Terms option
Exercise 2
 From the initial CINAHL page, you will note that the Suggest Subject Terms box is
checked as the default search. Make sure you have signed in to your My EBSCOhost
account.
 In the search box, enter multi drug resistant tuberculosis and click on Search. Try to
limit your search to the first search box.
 The next screen will display a series of Subject Terms. Check the box for
Tuberculosis, Multi-Drug Resistant (to display the subheadings search results) and
click on the Search Database button.
 What is the number of Results from this keyword search?
4. Limiting initial Results
The Results of the Tuberculosis, Multi-Drug Resistant search is large and now we will add
some Limits to make the search more precise.
Exercise 3
 From the Results page of the Tuberculosis, Multi-Drug Resistant search, in the Narrow
Results by (left) column, check the box for Research Article button.
 In the Limit your results (right) column, change the initial Filter by Publication Date to
2015 by typing this in the box and clicking on the computer’s Enter Key. What is the
number of Results from this keyword search?
5.
Add to/Create Folder
Exercise 4
 From the Results page of the Tuberculosis, Multi-Drug Resistant search, click the Add
to Folder icon for 5 articles. After clicking on this box, a drop down menu will appear
and you will click on the My Folder option.
 In the right column, click on the GoTo Folder View link.
 A new My Folder: Articles page will display. Here you have icons for the Print, E-mail,
Save as File options. In the Folder List (left column), click on New.
 In the Create New Folder page, Add Drug Resistant Tuberculosis to the Folder
Name box and, in the Move to Folder drop down menu, click on My Custom. Click on
the Save button.
 Note that the Drug Resistant Tuberculosis folder has been added to My Custom
Folder list (left column). For the 5 citations in My Folder: Articles, click on the Select
All/Deselect box and all the boxes next to the citations will be checked. Click on the
Move To drop down menu and select the Drug Resistant Tuberculosis box.
 A new page will display. The My Folder: Articles box will have the following message:
There are 0 result list items for your Folder. Click on My Custom/ Drug Resistant
Tuberculosis (left column) and you will note that the 5 articles have been moved to this
folder.
6. Emailing and Saving Search Results
Exercise 5
 From the My Folder page, open the My Custom/ Drug Resistant
Tuberculosis/Articles folder. Note: You can return to this by clicking on the Folder icon
at the top of the page.
 Check the Select/deselect all box. A new screen will appear with all the articles
checked.
 Click on the Save as File icon. Note the (default) checks in the html to links and
current search history boxes plus the Detailed Citation and Abstract option. Click on
the Save button.
 A new screen will show that the 5 article(s) will be saved with instructions on how to
save these citations. Using your Web Browser’s Save As option, save the citations as a
.txt or .html file. Save this to the computer’s C: drive or a flash drive or CD-Rom.
Exercise 6
 From the My Folder page, open the My Custom/ Drug Resistant
Tuberculosis/Articles folder. After a new screen appears, click on the E-mail icon.
Check the Select/deselect all box. Note: You can return to this by clicking on the
Folder icon at the top of the page.
 A new screen will appear. Note the checks in the html to links and current search
history boxes plus the Detailed Citation and Abstract option. Enter your email
address in the E-mail to box. Add Drug Resistant Tuberculosis to the Subject box.
Click on the Send button.
 A new Email Confirmation box will appear. Click on Continue.
 At some point, check your email to view the message sent by CINAHL.
Note: A similar process would be followed to Print the citations. Also note that you will have to
return to the HINARI Journals collection A-Z list to access the full-text articles.
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6. Completing a Suggest Subject Search for a topic of interest.
Exercise 7
 Click on the New Search box from the top bar of the CINAHL page.
 In the search box, enter nursing ethics or a search of interest to you and click on
Search. Add any Limits using the Search Options boxes. Click on the Search button.
 A new screen will appear. If you wish, you can use the options in Narrow Results by or
the Limit your results columns.
 From the Results page of the New search, click the Add/Remove box for articles that
you want to keep. After clicking on this box, a drop down menu will appear and you will
click on the My Folder option.
 Click on the GoTo Folder View (right column). In the Folder List (left column), click on
New.
 In the Create New Folder page, add the Name of your new search to the Folder Name
box and, in the Move to Folder drop down menu, click on My Custom. Click on the
Save button.
 A new My Folder: Articles page will display. Note that the Newly Named folder has
been added to My Custom Folder list (left column). For the citations you have saved in
My Folder: Articles, click on the Select All/Deselect box. A new page will appear with
all the boxes checked.
 Click on the Move To drop down menu and select the Newly Named folder box.
 Either Save or E-mail the articles in the Newly Named folder.
Note: For other searches you would like to complete, repeat Exercise 7.
Assignment
You have completed seven exercises for the CINAHL database. You have learned how to
search and set limits, create custom folders and save and email the articles from a folder.
Remember that you will need to return to the HINARI Journals collection A-Z list to access the
full-text articles.
Updated 2016 09