Skip to Main Content

Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines: Using CINAHL Filters

Learn about Evidence-Based Practice models, clinical questions, critical appraisal, and more.

Map of Essential CINAHL Filters

Using limiters in Library databases can greatly improve the quality and relevancy of your search results. Try using the limiters shown below in the CINAHL database.

You can find these filters by scrolling down the page underneath the search boxes for your keywords. 

CINAHL checkbox filters

The initial filters in the CINAHL Filters are checkbox filters. These allow you to specify specific facets for your search, such as only searching articles that have full text available, are written in English, are peer reviewed, or specify that an author is a nurse, among others.

Several of these filters are only available on the Advanced Search page, so you may need to navigate back to the advanced search page to add them.

  • Exclude Pre-CINAHL / Search only Pre-CINAHL
    • Pre-CINAHL items are available (either as a citation and abstract or as full text) in CINAHL, but have not been fully indexed and lack some features, like subject headings.
  • Evidence-Based Practice
    • Searches the Special Interest field for "Evidence Based Practice". This filter will limit your results to:
      • Articles from evidence-based practice journals
      • Articles about evidence-based practice
      • Research articles (including systematic reviews, clinical trials, meta analyses, etc.)
      • Commentaries on research studies (applying practice to research)
  • Human
    • This filter will limit your results to articles about research studies that utilized human participants.
  • First Author is Nurse/Any Author is Nurse
    • Limit your search to only articles that have been written by a nurse. Selecting First Author is a nurse will limit your results to only articles whom the first listed author is a nurse.
  • Randomized Controlled Trials
    • Limit your results to articles about research studies that utilized a randomized controlled trial.
  • Pregnancy
    • Limit your results to articles about research studies that deal with pregnancy/subjects are pregnant.
  • Inpatients/Outpatients
    • Specify whether the patient/subject demographic is being treated in an inpatient/outpatient setting.

CINAHL publication date, author, publication, clinical queries, journal subset, and geographic subset filters

Below the check boxes are additional filters, including Publication date, Journal Subset, and additional demographic filters that can further refine your results.

  • Publication Date
    • Limit the dates of publicatioin to get results from a specific time period (e.g., 2018-2023, or past 5 years)
  • Clinical Queries
    • Used to search for Therapy, Prognosis, Review, Qualitative, or Causation (Etiology) articles.
  • Publication type
    • Find a specific type of article such as Clinical Trials, Meta Analyses, Meta Syntheses, Randomized Controlled Trials, or Systematic Reviews
  • Age Groups
    • Limit your results to those focused on a specific age group, such as infant or adult, 65+.