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Gerstein Science Information Centre

Searching the Literature: A Guide to Comprehensive Searching in the Health Sciences

Students and researchers in the health sciences are often required to conduct comprehensive searches of the literature. Follow the steps in this guide to learn how this process works.

New CINAHL Interface

The CINAHL Interface is Changing December 2025!

The video below is for users familiar with comprehensive searching techniques in the previous Ebsco CINAHL interface. Learn where to click and how to document your searches in the new user interface. It's a significant change but you'll get the hang of it! 

CINAHL Video Tutorials

This series of quick, simple screencasts is designed to guide you through searching comprehensively in CINAHL.

INSTRUCTIONS:
- These screencasts are best watched in Maximized view.
- After you press play, click on the [ ] symbol in the bottom-right-hand corner of the player.
- Hit ESC on your keyboard to minimize the player when you are finished viewing the screencast. 

NOTE: Because screencasts capture the full monitor view, you will be able to see the narrator's clock, taskbars, and Chrome browser buttons (including the red X used to close Chrome). This may be confusing, especially for PC users. 


1. Introduction to CINAHL

2. Searching Subject Headings

3. Searching with Textwords

4. Improving Textword Searching

5. Combining Search Lines

6. Using Search Filters

7. Saving Searches

8. Finding Full Text Articles

Batch Exporting CINAHL Citations to Refworks 

When searching comprehensively, we recommend sending all your citations from the database to a reference manager for screening. 

Auto-Export Selected CINAHL Citations to RefWorks

Not all searches are comprehensive. Sometimes a quick search will do and you only need to export a few selected references from your search results to a citation manager. This option is for those kinds of searches. 

 

This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. For information on this guide contact Erica Nekolaichuk, Faculty Liaison & Instruction Librarian at the Gerstein Science Information Centre. 

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