NUR 18800: Foundations of Physical Assessment: Home

The library offers a wide range of online resources, including databases with various journals from which to choose articles and research studies.

To access your Library resources, please visit the homepage

Please consult your Library Liaison directly for research assistance.

If your Librarian is unavailable, please contact the Library's Reference desk at (219) 989-2676 or click on the CHAT WITH A LIBRARIAN link below to submit a question or see answers to frequently asked questions.

Library Hours: 

Library staff members are available to assist you during library hours. 

The library contains many articles on topics such as focused physical assessment and patient hand-off communication.  The most relevant database, CINAHL, can be accessed from the link below or by selecting the database links on the library's home page.  This database contains many nursing journals and the articles you can view in the database are generally not available for free on the internet.  Because the library subscribes to this database, all users must login to access it as only those affiliated with PNW are allowed access.

Library databases are accessible on and off campus by logging in with your Blackboard username and password.  Make sure to login from a non-employer network because some employers may use security settings that block access to various resources, including our databases.

After logging in to CINAHL from the link or this page or the databases link on the library's home page, select the advanced search link located under the search boxes.  The advanced search will allow you to select many options for what articles you would like to retrieve in your search.  One can select publication date, peer-reviewed, articles in nursing journals, and many more options.

After entering in your search terms and selecting search, article titles will appear in the results.  You may click on the title to read a summary (abstract) of the article, or go directly to the article by selecting the PDF Full text link if available:

If a Check for Full Text Availability link appears, this indicates that the article is not full text in CINAHL.  However, it may be located in one of our other databases.  To find out, click on the blue link and if the article is in our collection it will state "online access available" and one can access the article by selecting the name of the database where the full text is located.  More information on accessing these articles is available in the full text tab on this guide.

Specific search tips for locating articles on focused physical assessment and hand-off communication are in the tabs on this guide.