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. 

Why Use a Controlled Vocabulary like CINAHL Headings?

A controlled vocabulary is a collection of words which are organized in a systematic way based on their meaning. The controlled vocabulary groups words together into concepts or ideas. One way to think of using a controlled vocabulary is that you are searching ideas instead of just words. 

• For example, instead of searching human flu, human influenzas and influenza, you could use a controlled vocabulary and search influenza, human to search all three terms at once.

Controlled vocabularies tell the database to look for the terms in the subject terms section of the article record which may lead to more relevant results. 

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

1. Click on CINAHL Headings under the search boxes or on the left side of the screen.
2. Enter in your term in the search box and click search. 
3. Click on the box next to your term. When you click on the box you will see more information about the term, like 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. 
4. Click Add to Search to add it to your search and then hit search to see your Results.​

There are further options to refine your use of CINAHL Headings:

Subheadings

Subheadings allow you to further narrow down a CINAHL Heading. Click on the box next to the Heading to see subheading options.

When to Use: When you want to refine your results to a specific focus such as therapy, diagnosis, symptoms, etc...

Major Concept

Select the Major Concept box next to your CINAHL Heading if you only want to see results that have that Heading marked as a Major Concept.

When to Use: When you want your search term be one of the top main topics 

Explode

Select the Explode box to search all of the CINAHL Headings below that Heading in the Heading hierarchy.

When to Use: When you want to include related narrower terms in your search