Databases for nurses: special features

There are 2 primary nursing databases - the Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and International Nursing Index (INI), a subset of MEDLINE. CINAHL is a multifaceted database with several special features. It indexes many kinds of English-language documents back to 1983. INI, on the other hand, covers only journal literature, but indexes both foreign- and English-language articles back to 1966. CINAHL indexes several unique journals in subject areas such as consumer health and information science. Publication type codes in INI indicate the nature of material in journal articles, such as reviews, letters, editorials, news, and unique to MEDLINE, clinical trials. Document types in CINAHL indicate these, as well as items such as pictorals, tables/charts, nursing diagnoses, care plans, protocols, and questionnaires. Newer nonjournal document types include: 1. audiovisual, 2. software, which are submitted by the editor of Directory of Educational Software in Nursing, and 3. computer program, which are citations containing a written program.