Main Page: CRNA: Information Resources for Practitioners: Databases

Research Databases

Search for scholarly articles in the following databases. Free, full-text of the articles may not be available. Journals related to anesthesiology, pain medicine, and critical care are indexed in PubMed. This is the best database to search for articles about these topics. See the Finding Full Text tab of this guide for strategies to access full text of articles.

Databases:

PubMed
Database of biomedical literature created by the National Library of Medicine.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar indexes multidisciplinary scholarly literature, including journal articles, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, and books.
Cochrane Library
The Cochrane Library includes the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). "The CDSR is the leading source of systematic reviews in health care." Some reviews are tagged as "free access" or "open access".
Trip Medical Database
Trip is a clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care.
SafetyLit
"SafetyLit provides abstracts of reports from researchers who work in the more than 30 distinct professional disciplines relevant to preventing and researching unintentional injuries, violence, and self-harm."
Health Evidence
From McMaster University (Canada). Search the database of "5,480 quality-rated reviews on the effectiveness of public health interventions."

Search Tips

If you need a refresher on how to search for articles, the following resources will help.

Using PubMed in Evidence-Based Practice
This free, self-paced course from the National Institutes of Health will show you how to use evidence-based practice when searching clinical questions using PubMed.
Literature Searching for Practice Research
Gerberi D, Marienau MS. Literature Searching for Practice Research. AANA Journal. 2017;85(3):195-204.

Professional Organization: Personal Membership

Professional organizations, such as the American Nurses Association (ANA), may provide access to professional development resources. A personal membership to the ANA provides members access to the CINAHL database.

The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) does not provide access to any databases; clinical resources are freely available on the website.

Other Possibilities

Some states provide online access to databases to health professionals. For example, HEALWA is an online library for health care professionals in the state of Washington.

Check with your employer and ask if they provide access to databases and/or journals.