Structured searching for health students (using CINAHL and other databases)

Structured searching in Maternity and Infant Care

The video tutorials below show how to use Boolean operators, advanced search techniques and filters in the database Maternity and Infant Care. There is a PIO and a PICO research question to put the search into context. You can access the database by clicking on the link below.

Video Tutorial (PIO)	Video Tutorial (PICO)

Structured searching in PubMed

This interactive tutorial from the University of Nottingham shows how to conduct a structured search using PubMed. 

Online Tutorial:

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Medline (available via EBSCO) will cover a lot of the content within PubMed and offers the ability to do a more focused/structured search. It is also one of the main databases used in Systematic reviews. However, although both databases are very similar and will have a lot of duplicated content, there are some differences to be aware of, before you make your decision about whether to search them both or not.
 
Pubmed is an interface used to search Medline but it does also have some additional biomedical content. PubMed citations come from:
1) MEDLINE indexed journals:
2) journals/manuscripts deposited in PMC
3) NCBI Bookshelf. 
If you limit your PubMed search to MeSH controlled vocabulary or the MEDLINE subset, you will see only MEDLINE citations in your results.
More information is available here: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/difference.html 

Searching in the Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library training hub guides you through how to use the Cochrane Library by providing access to quick training videos, user guides and webinars. The short video below shows the different ways to search in the Cochrane Library.

Video Tutorial

Where do I Start Searching?: This video explores what types of information are available and where to search for them. As well as CINAHL, the University subscribes to a variety of health resources which will be useful for you in your research. You can access these through the A-Z of databases or your subject LibGuide.

This video has been created by Health Education England, which means that some of the resources highlighted are only available to NHS employees. If you are a Healthcare student, on an education program which involves practice and placement within an NHS provider, you can access these additional resources through Open Athens.

How do I Start to Develop a Search Strategy?: This video will help you to: focus your research topic; use frameworks to break down your topic into key concepts; identify additional search terms to broaden your search; use AND/OR to combine search terms. Although other frameworks are shown in this video, the School of Health and Social Care recommends the PICO/PIO/PEO framework.