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Why Use CINAHL?
Why Use CINAHL Instead of or in Addition to PubMed?
- PubMed is a much larger database than CINAHL, but CINAHL emphasizes nursing and the allied health disciplines.
- In addition to journal articles, CINAHL includes books, book chapters, dissertations, and computer programs. PubMed does not.
- There is an overlap in the journals indexed by these two databases. When searching CINAHL, you can easily limit your search to material NOT indexed by PubMed by checking the box “Exclude Medline records.”
- We recommend that you search both PubMed and CINAHL if you wish to do a more complete literature review. (Both can be found under "Databases by Title" in the Barry Library Electronic Resources webpage.