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CINAHL (English): 3. Combining your search

Combining PICO elements / building blocks

Following the building block method, work out each of your building blocks individually: find relevant Subject Headings and add then your own free search terms. This way, you usually create between three to five searches, depending on the number of building blocks in your (research) query. At the end, you merge these: this is boolean searching with AND.

Building blocks: Example

To start, you have placed one or more relevant Subject Headings in the Advanced Search engine. If necessary, specify which search fields you want to search in. Complete with (your own) free search terms.

Tip: It can be useful to search by Title-Abstract. (See here.)

  1. Build your first building block according to this example. Combine your search terms with OR. Choose Search.
  2. Click New Search and build your second building block according to step 1. Choose Search.
  3. Once you have searched all your building blocks, choose Search History (below the search bar).

Tip: Additional searching techniques

Do you want to search with:

Singular and plural at the same time

Use the truncation mark: *

Example: child*

► Search for child or children
► Often, the search is done automatically for singular and plural, but you can apply a truncation mark to be sure.

Multiple spellings at the same time

Use a wildcard: #

Example: behavio#r

► Search for behavior or behaviour

 

Want to know more? Use the help screen of the CINAHL database.

Combining your building blocks

Now that you have searched CINAHL with each of the building blocks, you are going to merge these. To do this, first Clear the query box and then go to Search History. 

► Here you will find your previous searches. Check whether these led to a result.
► Each search has a Search ID#.

Select the search lines you want to combine. Then select Search with AND.

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