Tomorrow will mark 12 weeks I have participated in the Nursing Research Challenge. I have enjoyed it thoroughly and plan to continue my weekly Friday nursing article posts. The only problem, I found, was that I do not have regular access to full-text nursing and healthcare journals. Or so I first thought. Then I realized I was crazy because there are literally thousands of free nursing and healthcare full-text journal articles around me. So, whether you want to jump in to the Nursing Research Challenge or simply update your practice with the recent evidence, check out the resources and ideas below.
- PubMed is a wealth of information, and you can filter your searchable results to include full-text articles. A simple search for “nursing research” resulted in 116,005 articles, of which, 8,499 are free, full-text. PubMed is a must for your favorites/bookmarks.
- Medscape Nurses offers everything in medical news, including access to select full-text nursing journal articles. And if that wasn’t already great, they also have links to 224 nursing and other healthcare journals (yes, I counted them!) which offer free access to select full-text articles each month.
- Lippincott’s NursingCenter offers free, full-text articles each month, and they also feature one of their 64 nursing journals each month in which you can access every article within the journal. Love it!
- My employer subscribes to numerous nursing and healthcare journals, and chances are, yours does, too. If you work within an acute-care setting, your facility likely has a medical library you can conveniently access. If you’re uncertain, it is worth an ask, for sure.
- While it’s not necessarily free, if you are a member of any professional nursing association, you likely have access to one or more journals. For example, American Nurses Association members have access to CINAHL through the members-only portion of their website. Of course, members also have access to ANA publications. As a member of the Oncology Nursing Society, I receive numerous publications with varying levels of nursing evidence, which I enjoy.
I am sure there are many other places to find free, full-text nursing articles. It simply takes some persistence and awareness. These are some of my favorites, though, that have more than enough reading material to keep my practice updated.
fatma yehia
November 8, 2012 9:46 amThanks a lot.
Rich
November 27, 2012 4:19 pmmy question is when I go on pubmed and it says “free full text” where do I click to access this? I don’t find any other icons and what’s on the page is just the abstract. I’m new to research and this is frustrating. I know it’s got to be there somewhere. Any help?
Nursetopia
November 27, 2012 8:28 pmRich, welcome to the wonderful world of research. 🙂
After you click on the “free full text option” to narrow your search results, click on the article you want. Then, scroll down past the full abstract. There should be another option, “Link out – more resources,” you can expand. That contains the link to the original source for the full-text article. I hope that helps!
yuri
April 4, 2013 1:41 amhi, I’m a student, and in the next few months I will be doing nursing research. I need some journals are competent and easy to get. may help me? I am very confused as to obtain journals, even though I’ve opened several sources. please help .. thanks in advance .. ^ ^
Nursetopia
April 4, 2013 9:53 pmThis article may help you, as well, Yuri: https://nursetopia.net/stagingsite/2011/04/26/its-raining-research-open-access-nursing-journals/
Best wishes!!
cynthia
April 12, 2013 12:08 pmI am a new student after 19 years of not being in school and not having much access to computers and their navigation syatems. I need scholary journals in nursing and am having much frustration finding them Please help.
Nursetopia
April 16, 2013 7:10 pmCynthia, congrats on being a student again. How exciting! Did the links within the post help you at all?