Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Searching the Literature
Suggested Databases
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowPubMed comprises more than 28 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. PubMed is maintained by U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) and is freely accessible to all Web users.
- CINAHL with Full Text This link opens in a new windowCINAHL with Full Text provides full text for the top nursing and allied health literature available and covers a wide range of topics including nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
- APA PsycINFO (EBSCO Publishing)(A&I) This link opens in a new windowThe largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains over 3 million records and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages.
Searching For Qualitative Literature
Qualitative research can be challenging to find. The methodologies are not well indexed in subject databases. Below is a short guide that will help provide you with some basics tips and strategies on how to find qualitative research literature through health science databases like PubMed and CINAHL.
Electronic Databases
- Databases for health science literature does not index qualitative health research openly
- Authors do not always mention the word qualitative in the titles or abstracts of their articles
Strategy 1: Use Subject Headings
- Databases index their records using controlled vocabulary. PubMed for example uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) as their indexing system for controlled vocabulary. Different databases use different indexing strategies. In PubMed, the term "qualitative research" is indexed as "Qualitative Research", while in CINAHL it is indexed as "Qualitative Studies". Other subject headings to think about using can include: "Phenomenological Research", "Grounded Theory", "Focus Groups", "Interviews" or "Descriptive Research".
Strategy 2: Free Text Keywords
- Using text or keywords may help you find specific qualitative research. Using free text words will find terms within the titles, abstracts and other records held in a database. Using terms such as, qualitative, "ethnographic research", phenomenological, "purposive sample", "lived experience", "grounded theory", "life experiences", "focus group*", interview*
Strategy 3: Using filters
- Must databases allow you to enable filters to specific fields. Filters such as Publication Type, Clinical Queries can be applied to your search.
PubMed and CINAHL
Qualitative Research Filters are pre-formulated search strategies that have been constructed by librarians to help you retrieve articles in databases that deal with qualitative research. You can use the filter and then combine the results with your subject.
In PubMed: There is a special query interface for Health Services Research, which has a category for Qualitative Research
In CINAHL: Refine/Limit the set to Clinical Queries. Select within the drop-down Clinical Queries menu: Qualitative-High Sensitivity; Qualitative-High Specificity; Qualitative-Best Balance. High Sensitivity is the broadest search, to include ALL relevant material, but may also include less relevant citations. High Specificity is the most targeted search to include only the most relevant result set, but may miss some relevant materials. Best Balance retrieves the best balance between the two.
Credit to: NYU Locating Qualitative Research guide: https://guides.nyu.edu/qualitativeresearch