Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery: Searching Databases

Statement

Resources to support the VU Bachelor of Nursing and Bachelor of Midwifery courses

Key nursing and midwifery databases

 

Locating Health and Medical Literature

You can find journal articles online via Library search or via Library databases. A database is a collection of material from trusted sources, particularly journal articles. One database may include articles from hundreds of journals. Some databases are multi-disciplinary, others are subject-specific and focus on a particular discipline, such as health.

To see a full list of databases relevant to your studies in paramedicine, go to  the library homepage, click on 'Databases A-Z', select 'subjects' and click on the 'Health, biomedicine & nursing' link.

 


Tips for finding articles.

Pharmacology databases

Google Scholar

 

Many VU library databases can also be searched through Google Scholar.

Fulltext journal articles and research papers can be retrieved by clicking on the "Find Fulltext @ VU Library" link when it appears to the right of your search results. This will happen automatically while on campus but may need to be set up as "Library Links" under Scholar Settings to work from off-site. This video provides information on how to change settings from within Google Scholar.

Alternatively use this direct link which includes the VU institutional settings.

How can you tell if a journal is peer reviewed?

 

UlrichsWeb is the authoritative source to go to if you want to find out if a journal is peer reviewed or not.
In UlrichsWeb, type in your journal title. Look at the 'Basic Description' for the journal. One of the categories in the 'Basic Description' is Refereed: Yes or No. In this context Refereed is the same as Peer Reviewed.