A primary source is a document or record which reports a study, experiment, event or other phenomenon firsthand. When a a nurse researcher interviews patients about their health behaviors, a pharmaceutical company conducts clinical trials on a new drug, or a health care facility surveys its nursing staff, they are creating primary information.
Primary sources are usually written by the person(s) who did the research, conducted the study, ran the experiment, or witnessed the event. Primary sources are detailed first reports of the results of this original research.
Look for the following elements when deciding whether a journal article is a primary source reporting the results of original research:
- Problem and Purpose
- Significance
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Literature review or synthesis of the theory and other research relevant to the topic being studied
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Description of the population or sample in the study;human subjects
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Outline of methodology
- Interventions
- Sample
- Instruments
- Data collection
- Data analysis
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Results and a discussion of their significance; implications
- Conclusions
What Types of Articles/Studies are Primary?
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Pilot/prospective studies
- Cohort studies
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Term projects
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Survey research
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Case studies
- Qualitative studies (participant observation, interviews, surveys)
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Experimental research (randomized clinical trials/RCTs)
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Double blind method
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Systematic reviews of the above
Clues for Determining Whether Article is Primary and Scholarly:
- Article has headings such as: "literature review," "population," "methodology," "results," etc.
- Contains keywords such as "study" or "research"...
Clues for Determining Whether Article is from a Nursing Journal:
- "Nurse" or "Nursing" appear in the name of the journal
- At least one nurse is among article authors.
Limiting to Studies Conducted in the U.S.
- CINAHL in the EBSCOhost system includes a limiter, whereby the searcher can limit to only those studies situated in the U.S. (or any other geographic region). It does not work perfectly, as sometimes a study is done outside the U.S. but published in a U.S. Journal, but it is worth using.
