This page has been compiled by your subject librarian and will help you to find information for your studies and research. It is not an exhaustive list of everything available, but will point you in the right direction.
Take a look at the Library pages for more general information about using our services. The Distance Learners page provides information on accessing resources whilst away from campus.
OneSearch is a good place to start your research. However as you progress through your course you will need to develop your searching skills to incorporate other sources.
Watch the tutorial below for an introduction to searching or access our Finding Information page for more advice.
Click on the image above or use this link to view the tutorial: How to search tutorial
You can also sign up to our webinar for guidance on how you can develop your search skills.
You will find a specific reading lists for you modules in your Blackboard sites or you can search OneList, our online reading list system. Remember that Reading lists are only the starting point, use OneSearch to find additional resources.
Many of your books are available as ebooks. These provide online access from any location 24/7. Click on the following link to download our EbooksGuide and check out the Ebook page for more Accessibility information.
If you find a book through the library catalogue that is only available in print in another University of Cumbria library you can reserve the book online. See our Requesting books page for more information.
A postal loans service is also available a small registration fee of £25 per calendar year.
To find out how to use the service, see our Postal Loans page.
We have selected some key eresources and individual journal titles to help you locate relevant material for your subject.
Use our eresources to search for relevant journal articles or other resources. Although OneSearch does search many of these, using the subject specific collections will produce more tailored results and provide more relevant filters. Eresources for health is an online tutorial to help you use these resources.
In addition to these key full-text eresources you can also explore our full A-Z of eresources to see the whole list and see the Research pages for additional research specific resources.
| Eresource | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing and health specific | ||
 |
CINAHL |
The key collection for Nursing and Allied health. It indexes (citations only) over 4000 journals and holds the full-text of 760 journals, plus linking to our other subscribed content. You will get fewer results but they should be more relevant. |
 |
MEDLINE | MEDLINE is the U.S. National Library of Medicine journal citation database covering medicine, nursing, the health care system and much more. This version includes citations from 5,200 scholarly journals and full-text from more than 1,450. It forms part of PubMed which searches wider but doesn't provide full-text. |
 |
Community Care Inform | Aimed at professionals who work with children and with adults in health and social care. Community Care Inform pulls together policy, guides, research, case law and legislation on a wide range of topics, from adoption to mental health and welfare rights. You will need to use the Shibboleth login on and off campus to get access to the full-text. Two collections are now available Adults and Children |
 |
Proquest Nursing and Allied Health | One of several collections from Proquest, all of which together form Proquest Central. This particular collection indexes 850 journals and holds the full-text of 715 Nursing and Allied health titles. More information in Getting started with Proquest databases. |
|
Public Health Collection | A specific sub-collection for Public health. Forms part of Proquest Central |
 |
Cochrane Library | Provides systematic reviews of clinical based research on the effectiveness of specific interventions. It will depend on your topic as to whether there will be a relevant review but if there is, it will be a key resource. Cochrane also runs a blog Evidence for everyday nursing, which pulls together reviews into a more digestible format. |
| Wider and multi-disciplinary | ||
 |
SocIndex | Comprehensive high quality sociological journal collection, mostly full text. |
 |
ScienceDirect. | Covers physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences and social sciences. As the name suggests it is more science based so it will depend on your topic whether you use this one. |
 |
PsycARTICLES | Full-text articles from 59 Psychology journals. |
 |
Academic Search Complete | A huge multi-disciplinary database which indexes (citations only) over 9,500 journals and provides full-text to over 6,500. Good for a search on more general topics. |
|
Proquest Central | Pulls together many of the Proquest collections, searching thousands of journals across many subjects. More information in Getting started with Proquest databases. |
 |
Sage Journals | Whereas the collections above hold content from a number of publishers this collection holds 900 full-text peer reviewed journals published by Sage. Other publisher collections are available but this one has the most relevant full-text journals. |
| |
Dissertations and theses | Global collection with some full-text from 1997 onwards. It is possible to limit by level e.g. MSc. To access UoC undergrad dissertations go to Collections in OneSearch |
 |
Refworks | Refworks is used to collect and manage your sources. It will also create your Reference list (Bibliography) in the Referencing style of your choice. Download the guide to using Proquest Refworks |
Browse or search inside key journal titles for your subject below. There are too many to mention but two of the key Nursing publishers are listed below. All of these journals are Peer reviewed and a good starting point. For a full range of titles check our A-Z of journals via Journals Search.
| Journal | Description | |
|---|---|---|
|
|
British Journal of Nursing | Published roughly twice a month this Academic journal keeps you up to date with the latest developments in clinical and practice-based nursing. |
| Nursing Standard | Weekly journal from the RCN keeping you up to date with current issues across all fields. A Professional journal that does include some peer reviewed clinical articles. | |
| British Journal of Community Nursing | Published monthly this is a key journal for Primary care, providing clinical reviews and updates, innovations in practice and research articles. |
|
| Journal for the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association. | ||
| Primary Health Care | News, clinical articles and essential skills to help nurses stay up to date with new techniques; continuing professional development articles, features, event listings & reviews | |
| Health and Social Care in the Community | A bi-monthly journal that takes a multidisciplinary approach recognizing the common ground between health and social care in the community | |
| Practice Nursing | Provides updates for nurses and managers with clinical reviews, clinical supplements and educational articles as well as the more practical clinics and travel health clinics. Use the MA Healthcare link for more current content. |
|
| Publisher Journal collection | Description | |
|---|---|---|
|
 |
RCNi Journals |
If you access this site on campus it should recognise that you are from the University and give you access to post 2013 content. Use the links below to access all pre 2013 content and full-text off campus. Nursing Standard, Emergency Nurse, Learning Disability Practice, Mental Health Practice, Nurse Researcher, Nursing Children and Young People, Nursing Management, Nursing Older People, Primary Health Care. |
| Mark Allen Publishing - MAG Online |
We don't subscribe to all of their journals and older content (pre 2016) will need to be accessed via the links below. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, British Journal of Mental Health Nursing, International Journal of Palliative Nursing, Journal of Prescribing Practice, Journal of Wound Care, Practice Nursing. |
Most hospitals will have a Library or Education centre. You are entitled to join as either a student on placement there or as a member of staff (includes bank staff). This will give you access to their print books and you can also request an Open Athens account. If you are on placement at the hospital you may be offered an introductory session by the library (Education centre). We recommend that you attend so that you can take full benefit of the additional resources that the NHS provides. If this doesn't happen, visit the library and ask to be signed up. You can find a list of NHS libraries here.
Similar to OneSearch this hub searches the NHS core collection of library resources and also gives quick access to NICE guidelines and BMJ best practice. It provides access to some collections that the University does not subscribe to, such as the British Nursing Index and Embase, as well as some we do, such as CINAHL. These are the resources that you will have access to in your professional career so it is a good idea to get familiar with them now.
You will need an OpenAthens account to view the full-text, search individual collections or access full-text. This is different to the University which uses something called Shibboleth or Institutional access.
A suite of online tutorials provided by Health Education England, supporting every aspect of healthcare. You can access some modules with a free registration but for them to count towards your CPD you need to log in with Open Athens.
See the guide on how to set up a free account e-LfH account creation.
Two new courses from the e-LfH - Literature searching and Critical Appraisal
| Key Public Health sites | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) | Previously part of Public Health England, it prepares for and responds to infectious diseases, and environmental hazards. They also have a COVID information page |
| Previously part of Public health England, it focuses on improving the nation’s health and on levelling up health disparities. | ||
| All Our Health | A suite of free e-learning sessions from Public Health England - for trusted information and advice on how all health and care professionals can prevent illness, protect health and promote wellbeing. Free registration. | |
| Independent body that provides resources to develop and implement better care. Covering Adults, Dementia, Child Services, Safeguarding and Integrated Health and social care. Also provided SCIEOnline - a huge database of resources for social care and social work | ||
| King's Fund | Independent charity seeking to improve the health and system in England | |
| World Health organisation (WHO) | The coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations. Use for Global Data and factsheets | |
| Evidence-based information | ||
|---|---|---|
| |
A nice resource from McMaster University that takes you through the steps in Evidence based public health. | |
| Evidence Informed Public Health | ||
| Provides resources and background information for healthcare professionals, with Critical Appraisal tools and educational material to download. | ||
| Helps you to find and interpret the best available evidence from health research by providing some useful checklists. | ||
| Appraises research to identify the most reliable, relevant and significant findings to support the NHS. It disseminates these findings as Signals (The latest important research, summarised), Highlights (Conditions, treatments and issues explored using NIHR evidence) and Themed reviews. | ||
| A search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice. | ||
| Health data and statistics | ||
|---|---|---|
| |
Office for National Statistics | Government statistics and reports including Heath and Social Care the census |
| Still relevant for pre-2021 statistics but replaced by | ||
| Centralised collection of social research data for the UK including Access to key surveys such as the Health Survey England and the Continuous Household survey | ||
| Statistical information reports from Cancer Research | ||
| Statistics on risk factors for heart disease, from the British heart Foundation. | ||
| Contains Local Ward and Parish data. | ||
| Local data. Brings together analysis and research about the people of cumbria. | ||
| WHO site pulling together global health data. | ||
| USA health statistics | ||
| Other useful sites | ||
|---|---|---|
| |
NHS Acronym buster |
Promoting an informed debate around alcohols impact on society. Publishing reports, research, videos and more. |
|
|
||
| People talk about their experiences of health and illness | ||
| Help and Advice | Link | |
|---|---|---|
 |
If you are experiencing any problems accessing eresources, check our troubleshooting guide for advice. |
Accessing Online Resources |
 |
If you are experiencing problems logging into a resource, try resetting your university password using the MFA Password Reset Tool. If the problem persists, please contact the IT Service Desk (itservicedesk@cumbria.ac.uk). |
MFA Password Reset |
 |
The Student Enquiry Point is a new, simpler way to contact Student Services. Using the Student Enquiry Point tile on the Student Hub you can submit an enquiry relating to the wide range of services provided by Student Services. | Student Hub |
