Library Guides: Nursing: Introduction

Welcome!

This page is designed to provide library research resources in Nursing. Use the tabs to find recommended research resources related to this discipline. For assistance in using the guide or locating resources, please contact your librarian or visit the UD Libraries Help Page.

Introduction to Healthcare Delivery

In this course, you will begin exploring the difference between popular and scholarly sources.

Popular sources are written for a general audience of non-experts.
- They often include unrelated advertising, are written by a journalist (or an author recounting someone else's research), and do not include substantial citations.
- Popular sources can be useful for brainstorming topics, gaining a quick understanding of a complex topic, or assessing the most current and popular research.
- Blogs, newspapers, and magazines are all examples of popular sources.

Find Popular Sources:

New York Times Online
Digital access to the renowned newspaper, featuring articles, multimedia content, and archives on news, opinion, and culture from around the world.
Current access to the digital edition of the New York Times, including US and international news, politics, sports, business and economy, health, education, science and technology, opinions, and newsletters. Explore the arts section, including book reviews, pop culture, theater, movies, and television. Listen to podcasts and narrated articles covering news, tech, culture, and more. Browse cooking recipes, advice and inspiration for everyday cooking and special occasions.
Access World News Research Collection
A database offering global news content, including newspapers, broadcasts, and online sources, enabling users to explore diverse perspectives and historical archives.
Research diverse perspectives, topics, and trends in this collection of current news sources, including North American and international newspapers, wire services, and broadcast news transcripts. It covers local, regional, and world issues, politics, government policies, sports, industries, cultural activities, schools, and people and events in local communities. Search curricular areas such as Political Science, English, Sociology, Humanities, Business, and International Studies, or more specific subjects such as African American Studies, Communication, Journalism, and Media Studies, Criminal Justice, Planning, Public Policy, and Public Administration, Social Work, and Sociology.

Scholarly sources are written by researchers for an audience of subject experts.
- They often have a very dry, to-the-point look and feel, are written by a practicing professional or scholar in the given field, and include thorough citation lists.
- Scholarly sources can be useful for learning about how research is conducted, keeping track of the scholarly conversation on a topic, and gathering high-quality evidence for use in practice.

Find Scholarly Sources:

CINAHL Plus with Full Text
Nursing and allied health database providing access to full-text journals, evidence-based care sheets, and research articles, supporting healthcare research and practice. On May 13, this EBSCO database switched to a new interface. Learn more.
As the electronic continuation of the print publication "Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature," this database provides comprehensive indexing for 4,500+ journals, covering the subjects of nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, and consumer health. It also includes citations for health care books, book chapters, nursing dissertations, conference proceedings, standards of practice, audiovisual materials, and publications of the American Nurses Association and the National League for Nursing. Additionally, search full-text of journals, legal cases, clinical innovations, critical paths, research instruments, and clinical trials.
PubMed
A free resource offering access to a vast database of biomedical literature, including articles, clinical studies, and reviews, supporting research in health and life sciences.
This database comprises more than 37 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE (indexed with Medical Subject Headings - MeSH) and PubMed Central (PMC), life science journals, and online books, with links to full-text content. PubMed's primary focus is biomedicine and health sciences, but it also includes related fields such as life sciences, behavioral science, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which is located at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing

In this course, you will begin asking clinical questions, exploring types and levels of evidence, and evaluating your results to best support your clinical decision-making.

PICO Questions

One way of focusing your question is by using the PICO format. PICO includes several factors that, when searched together, comprise a well-built clinical question. It includes:

Patient, Population, and/or Problem - Who or what is your question about?
Intervention, Prognostic Factor, or Exposure - What has changed with them: a new treatment, symptom, or incident?
Comparison - What is the standard of care in this situation? What other treatments have been used in past trials?
Outcome - What is the intended result or results?

Keep in mind that if you are having a difficult time converting your topic into a question, you may not know enough about it to perform a search! Use a database like UpToDate to fill in any gaps in your knowledge.

UpToDate
Provides comprehensive syntheses of evidence along with point of care recommendations including current drug information, medical calculators, and patient education handouts.
This article database is a point-of-care information resource which contains over 10,000 clinical topics representing 25 specialties. In addition to searching the entire resource or viewing Topics by Specialty, there are options to view the newest updates (What's New), Practice Changing Updates, Drug Information, and Patient Education information. Specialties included are: Allergy and Immunology, Anesthesiology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Dermatology, Emergency Medicine (Adult and Pediatric), Endocrinology and Diabetes, Family Medicine and General Practice, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, General Surgery, Geriatrics, Hematology, Hospital Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology and Hypertension, Neurology, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health, Oncology, Palliative Care, Pediatrics, Primary Care (Adult), Primary Care Sports Medicine (Adolescents and Adults), Psychiatry, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Rheumatology, and Sleep Medicine.

Types of Clinical Questions

Clinical questions come in different types. Some questions may be therapeutic in nature (i.e., designed around trying a new therapy to treat a problem) while others may be diagnostic (i.e., determining the cause of a problem). Understanding what kind of question you want to ask will help you determine what kind of evidence will be available and what elements of your PICO will be more important to include. The most common question types in nursing are:

Etiology - determining if there was an association between an exposure and a disease or condition (also called "harm")

Prognosis - prediction of the clinical course or the natural history of a disease or condition

Diagnosis - using a tool to arrive at a diagnosis of a disease or condition

Treatment - intervention for therapy (including adverse effects studies), prevention, rehabilitation, quality improvement, or continuing medical education (also called "therapy")

Clinical Prediction Guide - prediction of some aspect of a disease or condition

Qualitative - how people feel or experience certain situations

(Adapted from Wilczynski, N. L.et al. (2005))

Selected Books in Nursing

Self-Care for New and Student Nurses

"Self-care remains an imperative for nurses and other healthcare professionals as burnout, high attrition rates, emotional fatigue, and moral distress loom large over us, especially in the age of COVID-19."

Handbook of Nursing Diagnosis

"[Covers] the NANDA-I Nursing Diagnoses 2021-2023 and offers practical guidance on nursing diagnoses and associated care. The quick-reference type scope of content makes it easy for students to use while in clinical, in the classroom or simulation lab."