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Nursing Reference Center

Tutorial

Welcome to EBSCO’s Nursing Reference Center (NRC) tutorial. NRC offers staff nurses, nurse

administrators, nursing students, nurse faculty, and hospital librarians the best available and most recent

clinical evidence and reference information via a nursing-specific graphical interface. In this tutorial, you will

learn how to conduct a basic search and use the various browsing options in NRC. We will also look at other

features of NRC including the Home, Result List, and Article Detail pages.

Using NRC you can perform a keyword search or browse for specific content.

When performing a keyword search, NRC provides Nursing Process Limiters that mirror the

common process followed by most nursing professionals when delivering care to patients. This allows

nurses to obtain the most precise information according to a specific stage of patient care.

To perform a keyword search, enter your topic in the Find field and then click Search.

NRC displays a Result List of documents that contain your search term. The Result List items are

presented on a series of tabs, sorted by source type.

To view Result List items on the additional source type tabs, click each tab. To see all results, click the

All Results tab. To view an item or article, click a Full Text link – either HTML or PDF.

Quick Lessons, Evidence-Based Care Sheets, Drug Monographs, and Legal Documents viewed in HTML

format all contain embedded Table of Contents links allowing for easy navigation within the document.

From this screen you have the option to print, e-mail, or save.

If available, a Related Information box is also included that contains links to other NRC documents on

the subject.

NRC offers several screens where you can browse for specific document or information types.

These browse screens are accessible via tabs in the NRC interface: Diseases & Conditions, Skills &

Procedures, Drug Information, Patient Education, Practice Resources, and Continuing Education.

The Diseases & Conditions tab provides a specific location to browse for Evidence-Based Care Sheets

and Quick Lesson documents about specific diseases and conditions.

Quick Lesson documents provide a description, signs and symptoms, typical diagnostic and treatment

progress tests, and the intervention in which nurses are likely to be involved during care.

Evidence-Based Care Sheets provide evidence in terms of what is known, and how a disease or

condition can be treated.

You can browse by specifying a topic name, or navigate all topics via the A-Z browse list. To view an item,

click the title.

The Skills & Procedures tab gives you access to clinical papers detailing the necessary steps to achieve

proficiency in a specific nursing task, or defining the key considerations to providing culturally-competent care

to a specific group. You can browse by specifying a topic name or navigate all topics via the A-Z browse list.

To view an item, click the title.

The Drug Information tab provides a specific location to browse for detailed drug monographs. Entries

on the Drug Information tab are listed by drug company name and monograph name. You can browse by

specifying a topic name and selecting either the Davis Drug Guide for Nurses or the AHFS Drug

Information Essentials, or navigate all topics via the A-Z browse list.

The Patient Education tab provides a specific location to browse for evidence-based patient handouts.

Many documents are available in multiple languages and many contain detailed medical illustrations.

You can browse by specifying a topic name, or navigate all topics via the A-Z browse list.

Each Patient Education document displays the date the content was last updated and includes standard

sections, accessible via an embedded table of contents. If available, a Related Information box is also

included that contains links to other NRC documents on the subject. If a document is available in multiple

languages, they will be accessible at the top of the page.

You can use the NRC Customizing Printouts feature to add patient-specific information to the document.

You are prompted to enter this information after you select the Print option.

The custom information you provide appears at the top of the first page of the printed document.

The Practice Resources tab allows you to browse for information by a specific resource or guideline. You

can access articles and documents about Legal Cases, Practice Guidelines, and Research Instruments.

Additionally, you can browse entries in Featured Books, including Davis’s Drug Guide for Nurses, Davis’s

Laboratory & Diagnostic Tests with Nursing Implication, and Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary.

The Continuing Education tab provides a specific location to browse for topics for which continuing

education modules exist. You can browse by specifying a topic name or navigate all topics via the A-Z browse

list. NRC continuing education modules are accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and by

the International Association for Continuing Education and Training.

To obtain very precise search results when performing a keyword search, NRC offers an Advanced

Search screen. The Advanced Search screen provides the capability to select specific document types,

assign limiters, and indicate publication type.

NRC includes a personal folder area where you can store search results, persistent links to searches,

saved searches, search alerts, journal alerts, and web pages.

From the folder, you can print, e-mail, or save multiple results at the same time. If you have signed in to your

NRC personal account, any items you collect in your folder are automatically saved at the end of a session.

You can also create custom folders in your personal folder area.

Nurses, Nursing Managers, and Education Coordinators will find the custom folders especially useful for

organizing frequently referenced documents about specific medical conditions. Within each folder you can

store as many documents as you need – such as Patient Education Packets, Guidelines, and Quick Lessons.

Custom folders can also be shared with other NRC users by using the Shared Folder feature.

Returning to the Home Page, there are several resources available to you.

The Spotlight area contains links to areas of interest in NRC. Nursing News provides links to top news

stories via HealthDay news feeds. Search Other Services provides access to medical resources outside

NRC. These resources might include other EBSCO services, a hospital guidelines site, or any other

resources that are beneficial to nurses.

Click on the Help link to view the complete online Help system.

This concludes the Nursing Reference Center tutorial.