Joseph U. Almazan, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

Paolo Colet, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

Nancy Stitt, Nursing Program Director, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

Jurgita Gulbiniene, Lecturer, Lithuanian University of Health Science, faculty of Nursing, Lithuania

Anargul Kuntuganova, Instructor, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

Alma Syzdykova, Director, Department of Science and Education, University Medical Center Corporate Fund, Kazakhstan

Aurelija Blaževičienė, Professor, Lithuanian University of Health Science, faculty of Nursing, Lithuania

Writing research in nursing academe and clinical settings has been made much easier because of accessible online literatures (Charles Sturt University-Library Guides, 2021). With a computer or smartphone and an internet connection, nurses can conveniently access a wide array of academic research articles in the World Wide Web. However, due to the rich and extensive coverage of the web, an individual can find tons of information, which could be either outdated, unreliable, false, or biased.

To avoid falling into the trap of misinformation, nurses must be knowledgeable on the various credible databases. Thus, several burning questions are needed to be focused and answered to guarantee that only credible information are obtained, analyzed, and utilized by the public. Where can we search for scholarly research articles? Where do we search a credible, factual, and updated information?  Where do we find journal article where all records are open access and has a full text attached? The answers to these questions can be accessed in a credible information website from online academic research databases called online electronic databases (Charles Sturt University-Library Guides, 2021). Online electronic databases are an organized collection of information records that can quickly and conveniently provide access to wide array of information from the website, biographies, online e-books (St. Luke’s School Library, 2021).  It also holds peer-reviewed articles written by professionals, researchers, scholars, and experts in their field of specialization. Thus, it might be safe to say that this access towards information would be accurate, up to date, and copyrighted (Figueiredo & Pereira, 2017). This online database is easily accessible when a person searches the web; it can provide powerful searchable tools in narrowing down results. It can quickly find the information that users need. It is also important to emphasize that online databases are extensive organization of scholarly projects, which are useful sources of information in research and teaching (Charles Sturt University, 2021). Table 1 provides the most commonly use databases in nursing.

Table 1 Common nursing related databases.

Other good resources for grey literature are found in Table 2. 

Table 2 Databases for grey literature.

In the nursing academe, searching the web can provide highly valuable information for nurse educators and nursing students. On one hand, nurse educators can find innovative insights in the web that they could use to enhance their teaching contents, strategies, and pedagogies. On the other hand, nursing students’ learning can be reinforced by the rich knowledge that they could encounter from the web. When conducting nursing educational research, online databases can provide open data sources that enable nurse researchers to advance nursing education through identifying knowledge gaps and exploring and implementing potential solutions to fill these gaps. Moreover, developing and implementing nursing educational policies are based on educational research, which starts from a rigorous review of literatures from online data bases.

However, despite the increasing usage of online databases by researchers and academic professionals in the recent years, some students have reported poor skills in utilizing and navigating electronic databases, including web browsing (Coman et al., 2020). Insufficient number of available databases due to high cost of journal subscription fees and lack of funding of universities (Bramer et al., 2017; Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020), lack of training in searching e-resources, and low internet speed access (Apuke & Iyendo, 2018) are other reasons for the poor skills in searching different data bases. This may in turn could lead to a negative result in using this valuable research tool; thus, limiting their search for information.

With the tremendous benefits of online databases to the nursing academic and clinical world, the importance of online databases is underscored by giving more active and continuous training. Thus, improving awareness of available e-resources is empirical. Finally, conducting regular workshops and seminars for nurse educators must be taken seriously to ensure that they make adequate use of the online databases and that they are capable of training their students to effectively utilize online data bases.

References:

1. Apuke, O. D., & Iyendo, T. O. (2018). University students’ usage of the internet resources for research and learning: Forms of access and perceptions of utility. Heliyon, 4(12), e01052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e01052
2. Bramer, W. M., Rethlefsen, M. L., Kleijnen, J., & Franco, O. H. (2017). Optimal database combinations for literature searches in systematic reviews: A prospective exploratory study. Systematic Reviews, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-017-0644-y
3. Charles Sturt University (2021) Library Guides: ASC262 Research Skills Guide: What is a journal database. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from Csu.edu.au website: https://libguides.csu.edu.au/c.php?g=810071&p=5781097
4. Coman, C., Țîru, L. G., Meseșan-Schmitz, L., Stanciu, C., & Bularca, M. C. (2020). Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during the Coronavirus Pandemic: Students’ Perspective. Sustainability, 12(24), 10367. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410367
5. Figueiredo, M. S. N., & Pereira, A. M. (2017). Managing Knowledge – The Importance of Databases in the Scientific Production. Procedia Manufacturing, 12, 166–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2017.08.021
6. Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020). Which academic search systems are suitable for systematic reviews or meta‐analyses? Evaluating retrieval qualities of Google Scholar, PubMed, and 26 other resources. Research Synthesis Methods, 11(2), 181–217. https://doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1378
7. St. Luke’s School Library (2021). Why use databases? Retrieved September 30, 2021, from Stlukesct.org website: https://blogs.stlukesct.org/slslibrary/why-use-databases/