CINAHL Complete Tutorial

What are CINAHL Headings?

CINAHL Headings is a controlled vocabulary based on the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) structure, commonly found in PubMed. Since CINAHL Complete includes many topics not included in PubMed, CINAHL adapted the MeSH structure to include those topics not indexed in PubMed. Typically these topics are in fields commonly considered allied health. 

To do a basic search with CINAHL Headings do the following:

1. Go to CINAHL Complete.
2. Click on CINAHL Headings at the top of the screen.
3. Enter in your term in the search box and click search. 
4. Click on the box next to your term. 
5. Click on the text bubble to review the definition (scope) of the term . This helps you verify if this heading is the right one for you. If it is not the right term scroll down to see related terms. 
6. Click on Search Database to retrieve results.
7. Review your results. 

 To see a demonstration of this process, watch the video below:  ​