Welcome to the Nursing Subject Guide.
Audience: BSN and MSN & NP students & faculty.
Help Available: please contact librarians with Ask a Librarian or on the Library Tab in the Portal (phone, email, chat)
How to Use: Click a tab to learn more.
APA Citation Style Guide
Evidence Based Practice Guide
Choose an area to see the databases:
- Nursing & NP
- Nursing Education
- For Nursing Informatics, Informatics & Data Science
Required to find research with nurse as an author or primary investigator?
Common nursing research topics:
- Education: Nurse training, staffing or education
- Behavior: Nurse attitudes, relationships & communication on the job,
- Patients: Patient safety, patient education, health promotion, patient attitudes & satisfaction
- Health: nurse self-care, stress, health & mental health, quality of life, work life balance, burn out
- Different Healthcare settings: primary care, hospital, ICU, corrections/prison, home healthcare, Urgent care/Clinic, telehealth
Not usually nursing research:
- drug treatments or therapy
- surgical treatment
Searching Databases
CINAHL Complete has filters for:
- First Author is Nurse
- Any Author is Nurse
Add the keyword nurs* to any database search
You can search for books & ebooks in Primo.
Books
For General instructions: Finding Books
Find a specific book or chapter
Library of Congress Call Numbers
RT 84.5 Nursing theory
RT 90 Nursing Education
Ebooks
Reference Books
Use these general guides to look up definitions for terms.
Need Help? Finding Encyclopedia’s Guide
| Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing & Allied Health | Ebook |
| Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy | REF RC 55 M4 |
| Physicians’ Desk Reference | REF RS 75. P5 |
| Human Anatomy Online | Website |
| NLM’s MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia | Website |
What is Empirical Research? Watch Video
Finding Primary Research Articles
Use these search techniques to locate primary research articles inside databases.
- Add the following row of keywords to your search: (methods AND results) OR methodology OR “research” OR “study”. You will want to copy and paste this entire row of keywords into its own search box in the advanced search.
Important! From your list of results, you will still need to examine each article to see if it is primary research.
- Filter by Document/Article/Publication type: health sciences databases often let you limit results by article type. Common options include:
- Clinical Trials
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Cohort Study
- Case study/Case Report
- You can search for journal articles in Primo and library databases (see databases tab).
- For General Instructions: Finding Journal Articles
- Find a specific article.
Scholarly Journal Titles
- American Nurse Today
- Applied Nursing Research
- Journal of Christian Nursing
- Journal of Nursing Scholarship
- Nursing Made Incredibly easy!
- Nurse Practioner
- Nursing Research
- Online Journal of Issues in Nursing
- Nursing, General eJournals
- Nursing Research eJournals
Finding Journal Articles By Journal Title
- Open Primo Journal Title Search
- Search for the Journal’s Title or ISSN.
- Click on the Journal’s title in the search results.
- Search inside the journal for the article title on the journal page, or click a database link for years, volumes, and issues.
Note: Digital scans of print journal articles can be requested through Primo.
Library Research Guides:
- Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources in the Health Sciences
- Alverno College Nursing Guide
- Types of Research Studies (Hierarchy of Evidence) PDF
Types of Nursing Research (Video)
Tools for Evaluating Research Articles
Books
| Nursing Theory : utilization and application | RT84.5 .N94 2014 |
| Pioneering Theories in Nursing | Ebook |
Analyzing and Conceptualizing the Theoretical Foundations of Nursing | Ebook |
| Middle Range Theory for Nursing | RT84.5 .M537 2008 |
Nursing Theories : a framework for professional practice | RT84.5 .M364 2012 |
Search Terms to Try
- Nursing education
- Nursing research
- Nursing models
- Nursing theory
- Nursing theory & Theorist’s name
- Nursing issues
- Nursing -philosophy
- Theorist’s name search (last,first)
Databases
See database descriptions in Databases Tab
- CINAHL Complete
- MEDLINE Complete
- Academic Search Complete
- Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
- Nursing & Health Professions Premier
- Nursing & Allied Health Source
- PubMed
Try these for life history information about theorists:
Other Research Guides
Many nursing specialties and states have their own professional organizations.
- American Organization of Critical Care Nurses (AACN)
- American Organization of Nurse Executives
- American Academy of Nurse Practitioners
- American Nurses Association (ANA)
- American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA)
- Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN)
- Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN)
- National League for Nursing (NLN)
- National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA)
- Oncology Nursing Society (ONS)
- Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing
- Wisconsin Nurses Association (WNA)
- Wisconsin Student Nurses’ Association
- HealthData.gov: US health and medicine data
- UWM’s Milwaukee Data Guide: Find community health data from the city and Milwaukee county.
- National Center for Health Statistics- Fast Stats Alphabetical list of stats on public health issues
- National Center for Health Statistics- Health annual report Datafinder tool and free infographics
- The Broad Institute: Cancer-related data sets
- State Health Facts (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)
- World Health Organization Data Repository: Health-related statistics from over 100 countries
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
List of Data Healthcare sources online - NIH Tutorial: Finding and using health statistics
Background Information
- Quality and Safety Education for Nurses
- Nursing on the Net
- Lippincott’s Nursing Center
- MayoClinic
Overview of Medical conditions and treatments - MedlinePlus Encyclopedia
Covers the basics of medical conditions, medications, and medical tests - MedlinePlus Health Videos
Short anatomy videos explain how diseases and medical conditions work inside the body - NLM Multicultural Health Information Resources
Resources on health information, health education, and cultural competency on minority patient populations.
Exam Study guides are located in the Main Stacks at call number: RT 55
NCLEX RN Exam Preparation Ebooks in Primo
Online Resources
- Open LearningExpress Library
- From the homepage search for: nclex-rn
- Choose one of the activities to try. Under the activity, click Sign in or Register.
- Click Register and create a free account.
Note: If you are located on-campus, your institution will be “Badgerlink”.
Off-campus users:
- Choose Mequon-Concordia University Wisconsin from the Choose Your Library list
- Enter your CUW library barcode. If you don’t have a Falcon ID card, call the library and ask: 262-243-4330
- On the Find Resources page, click on LearningExpress Library.
- Create a Free LearningExpress User Account.
Video Tutorials
Click on the video and the CC icon for captions.
This video from Marquette University provides excellent search strategies. Search for books in the advanced search in Primo.