CINAHL
The core index for nursing and allied health.
At a Glance
- Publisher
- EBSCO
- Coverage
nursing and allied-health literature — journals, plus dissertations, standards of practice, and continuing-education modules
- Access
institutional subscription (Complete / Ultimate / Plus tiers)
- Free alternative
- PubMed for the biomedical overlap
- Regional
global, English-dominant
Our Take
CINAHL is to nursing and the allied-health professions what PubMed is to medicine — the specialist index, with content types (care sheets, practice standards, CE modules) tailored to those fields and its own subject-heading vocabulary. For evidence-based nursing practice and allied-health reviews it’s the primary source. It’s subscription-only and EBSCO-hosted, with the usual learning curve on the headings. Use it as the discipline index for nursing and allied health; pair with PubMed and Embase for full biomedical coverage.
Power Tips
- Search CINAHL Subject Headings for precision, and use the content-type filters to reach practice standards and care sheets the medical indexes lack
- combine CINAHL with PubMed for evidence-based nursing reviews so you cover both the nursing and medical literatures.
Alternatives & Complements
PubMed · Embase · Cochrane Library · MEDLINE.
Figures last verified: August 16, 2026