The British Nursing Index and CINAHL: a comparison of journal title coverage and the implications for information professionals

Objectives: This paper compares the journal coverage of the British Nursing Index (BNI) and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). The main objectives are to assess whether BNI is a useful source of UK publications and to consider the implications for information professionals.

Methods: Lists of the journals indexed in BNI and CINAHL, CINAHL Plus and CINAHL Complete were compared. The date coverage and article entry date of a selection of UK nursing journals were also compared.

Results: One hundred and fifty-nine journals are uniquely indexed in BNI compared with the basic version of CINAHL. Eighty-one journals are uniquely indexed in BNI compared with all versions of CINAHL. Fifty-one of these journals are UK publications. Most of the selected UK nursing journals have earlier start and entry dates in CINAHL than BNI.

Conclusion: BNI is smaller than CINAHL, and BNI indexes a relatively small number of unique journals. An information professional with access to CINAHL Plus or CINAHL Complete could reasonably not search BNI for a nursing topic, particularly if the topic is not UK specific. UK nursing research is more likely to benefit from using BNI, although the acquisition of BNI by ProQuest could impact this finding.