Valencia Campus Library:
Finding Information on Diseases
Choices
Diseases
- Diagnosis
- Symptoms
- Treatment
- Therapy
- Prevention and Control
- Nursing
- Therapy
- Genetics
- Transmission
- Etiology
- Pathology
- Immunology
Audience
- Consumers
- Patients
- Family members
- Nursing staff
- Doctors
- Other Health Care Professionals
- Mental Health Professionals
- Dentists
- Scientists
Types of Information
- Newspapers
- Web
- Popular magazine
- Scholarly journals
- Books
- Social media
- Media (TV, radio)
Process
Recommendations
1. Choose a disease.
2. Brainstorm
- Using "Diseases" column, identify what you need to know.
- Identify what you already know.
- Choose your audience.
3. Create a search strategy.
- What type of information do you need?
- What information tools will you use
- What specific search words will you use?
4. Search and evaluate.
- Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
- Reading Scholarly Articles
- Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
- "TRAP" worksheet
- Timeliness--Is it current?
- Relevance--Is it on your topic?
- Authority--Is the author credible?
- Purpose--Why was it written?
5. Use the information.
- Is it plagiarism?
- Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism
- Is it cited correctly?
- APA help from APA
- APA style from Sacramento State University Library
- APA style from the Purdue Owl
- KnightCite (Calvin College)
- For consumer information, use MEDLINE Plus or Health and Wellness Resource Center.
- Best database for nursing is CINAHL.
- Target audience for PubMed is doctors.
- Always check MESH or CINAHL vocabulary.
- Use LIBROS to find background information in books.
- Consider "review" journal articles for overview of your topic.
- Use database filters (population, language, article type, date, fulltext) to limit results.
- Use Database Passwords for when off-campus.
- For additional resource, use the Library's Nursing Research and Resources page.