Nursing & Health Innovations: Identifying Nursing Research

When you are looking at a citation for an article in CINAHL or MEDLINE, look at the following fields for clues to help you to determine which type of nursing research best describes your article:

Publication Type:  The Publication Type might indicate if your article is a research article, a review article, or it might specify certain types of research (such as meta-analysis).

Major Subjects / Minor Subjects / MeSH Terms:  Subject terms often provide insight into the research methods utilized in the article, and may identify specific types of nursing research (such as quality improvement or meta-analysis).

Abstract:  Words and phrases in the abstract will often reveal if the article is a research or review article, or indicate the research methods used by the authors.