How To Use CINAHL

The Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) is a comprehensive and authoritative index to current periodical literature for nurses, allied health professionals and others interested in health care issues. The index consists of five bimonthly issues and one cumulative bound volume per year. It was formerly titled Cumulative Index to Nursing Literature.

You can search CINAHL by subject or by author. To search by subject, start with the CINAHL Subject Headings (the yellow pages) to find the appropriate subject heading for the topic of interest. For example, if you are searching for articles about strokes, you will be directed to "Cerebral Vascular Accident". Once you have identified the appropriate subject heading, go to the subject index (the white pages). Within each subject heading, journal articles are listed first and are followed by pamphlets, books, dissertations, and other material. Citations for each subject heading are further divided into subheadings so that related articles are grouped together.

The Audiovisual Supplement covers nursing, allied helath, and patient education material. Copyright dates in the 1996-1997 supplement range from 1980 to 1996. Audiovisuals can be searched by CINAHL subject headings and by title. The title section contains a CINAHL-authored abstract and a listing of major subject headings for each entry. Search the Audiovisual Supplement by subjects and then turn to the alphabetical title index to read the abstracts. 

Citations to journal articles consist of the following elements in order:

1. Title of article
2. First author (additional authors indicated by et al)
3. Document type
4. Journal title abbreviation (complete titles are listed in the front of each index)
5. Publication date, volume, and issue
6. Page number(s)
7. Number of references and suggested readings

Citations to other material are described in the "Searching CINAHL Effectively" section of the front of each subject index.

To search for an author, look in the author index. If the person you are looking for is one of the first three authors, his or her name will appear in the author index. The complete citation is listed only under the first author. The second and third authors are cross referenced to the first author. For example, if you are searching the 1998 CINAHL for an article by E. Field, you will be directed to the first author, JK Loudon.

Biographies and Obituaries also appear in the Author section. They are listed alphabetically and the names appear in parentheses. Example, (Grandbois M).

CINAHL is located on Index Table 7. The library owns CINAHL for the years  1977-present. In addition, the library owns the volumes under its former title for the years 1956-1976.