Taking a Bite out of CRISP: Strategies on Using and Conducting Searches in the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects Database

A vast array of information useful to the scientific community is readily available on the Internet. Currently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers user access to several large databases, some of which are pertinent to nurses interested in research, health policy formation, and identifying funded research projects. One such database, the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP), provides information on research grants funded by the NIH from 1972 to the present. Retrieval of scientific information for each project in CRISP is made available by project title, grant number, abstract, principal investigator, eight-digit CRISP Thesaurus terms, and key words. This article introduces the reader to CRISP and provides a set of succinct strategies for conducting comprehensive searches in the database.