Frequently Asked Questions

Could you help me find articles using CINAHL Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to answer my research question "What infection prevention strategies reduce healthcare‑associated infections among hospitalised adult cancer patients?"

It is useful to first search using Medical Subject headings. In CINAHL they are called CINAHL Headings.  These are specially applied by subject matter experts for each article in the databases like CINAHL, Proquest (Thesaurus) and Pubmed (MeSH) to help researchers find all the resources on a topic. Here are the steps to take in CINAHL.

1. Look at your question and identify key terms in your question e.g. What infection control strategies reduce healthcare‑associated infections among hospitalised adult cancer patients?

Possible key search terms: Nursing (if you are a nursing student); infection control; cancer.

2. Go to CINAHL in the A-Z Databases

3. Click on Advanced Search

4. Click on CINAHL Headings

4.A search on infection control find the official heading is the same. Tick next to this term and click on Add to Search

5. A search on nursing for the official heading finds a range of options including an official heading for Oncology nursing which is relevant to the cancer aspect of the question. Tick next to the best option and click on Add to Search

6. The search now looks like the following. Click on the main search button to see the results.

7. Apply two filters - Peer reviewed and Past 10 years to ensure up to date scholarly articles are found.

8. This supplies a range of the most relevant results for my question.

9. It is a good idea to keep track of your search strategies using a template if you need to write up your search strategy process in your assignment. Use this  Search Strategy Recording template

10. Find more tips for searching databases in the Research - Subject Guide