Nursing License Map / Resources / Nursing Student and Professional Toolbox / Online Nursing Journals
Nursing journals primarily focus on research and evidence-based information, offering insight to nurses and those looking to become a nurse. They often present, review, communicate and offer critiques about nursing issues, which may support both academic progress and careers of nurses.
Nursing journals can be general to the profession or specific to nursing specialties, such as oncology nurse or geriatrics nurse.
Here is a selection of online nursing journals. These free journals may contain some articles that require purchase.
Description: This is a peer-reviewed journal for advanced practice clinicians, healthcare professionals, clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, and academic and clinical educators in emergency nursing. Feature articles focus on current content for experienced clinicians and advanced practice nurses in emergency care.
Website: Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal
Description: This journal from the National Association of Neonatal Nurses promotes evidence-based care and improved outcomes for infants and their families. It publishes clinical practice articles and original research, including peer-reviewed editorials. This journal includes detailed teaching and visual aids, such as Research to Practice, Cultivating Clinical Expertise, Family Teaching Toolbox and Online Features.
Website: Advances in Neonatal Care
Description: This highly honored nursing journal is the world’s oldest. Evidence-based and peer reviewed, it is considered the profession’s premier journal. The journal says its mission is to promote excellence in nursing and healthcare through the dissemination of original research and clinical information, adherence to the standards of journalistic integrity and excellence, promotion of nursing perspectives to the healthcare community and the public, and discussion of relevant and controversial professional issues.
Website: AJN, American Journal of Nursing
Description: This is an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research, meta analysis of existing studies and systematic reviews, along with commissioned commentaries about maternal and newborn public health and perinatal clinical care. The journal says its readers are obstetrics, public health, and neonatology; childbirth educators; lactation counselors; midwives; physicians; doulas; social scientists; epidemiologists; psychologists; and other policymakers and health workers in perinatal care.
Website: Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care
Description: This is an official journal of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS). It is intended for practicing nurses specializing in the care of patients with an actual or potential cancer diagnosis. The journal seeks to share evidence-based, clinically relevant content for oncology nurses to use when caring for cancer patients. ONS says the journal is intended to promote the society’s mission, which is to advance quality cancer care and excellence in oncology nursing.
Website: Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing
Description: This journal says its mission is to foster continued development of the clinical nurse specialist role, to share outcomes and to highlight contributions globally. It is the official journal of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists.
Website: Clinical Nurse Specialist: The Journal for Advanced Nursing Practice
Description: This bimonthly peer-reviewed journal says it intends to provide critical and acute care nurses with useful, relevant and evidence-based information concerning the bedside care of acutely ill and critically ill patients. It also aims to keep acute and critical care nurses up to date on issues that affect the safety and quality of their practice.
Website: Critical Care Nurse
Description: This journal systematically searches a wide range of global healthcare journals and applies criteria for research validity and relevance to best practices in nursing. Content is critically appraised and the most relevant articles are summarised, focusing on the papers’ key findings and implications for nursing practice.
Website: Evidence Based Nursing
Description: This journal is a comprehensive source for clinical information and management advice relating to the care of older adults. Its peer-reviewed articles provide practical advice on care of older adults across the long-term continuum and report the latest developments in the management of acute and chronic disorders. The journal is written specifically for nurses and nurse practitioners who work with older adults in any care setting.
Website: Geriatric Nursing
Description: This is the official publication of The American Association of Heart Failure Nurses, presenting original, peer-reviewed articles on investigations,techniques, advances and observations related to the care of patients with chronic cardiac or pulmonary disorder and patients with acute and critical illness.
Website: Heart & Lung; The Journal of Acute and Critical Care
Description: This bimonthly peer-reviewed journal explores holistic models of nursing practice. Content emphasizes complementary holistic and traditional nursing and healthcare practices. Rather than focusing on disease process and deficit, the holistic approach emphasizes the potential for health and healing in human systems.
Website: Holistic Nursing Practice
Description: This is a professional, contemporary journal serving the educational and communication needs of hospice and home care nurses. It focuses on the interdisciplinary, multidimensional and specialty practice areas of home care nursing. The core of the publication is operational, clinical and educational home care nursing issues.
Website: Home Healthcare Now
Description: The mission of this journal is to aid specialist nurses in their care of critically ill patients; to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum for the publication, dissemination and exchange of experience, ideas and research findings; and to develop and enhance the knowledge, attitudes, skills and creative thinking essential to good critical care nursing practice.
Website: Intensive and Critical Care Nursing
Description: This journal is a fully refereed publication with original scholarly work advancing the international understanding and development of nursing as a profession and academic discipline. It focuses on professional discussion papers and research with a sound theoretical, scientific or philosophical base.
Description: This is the official journal of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). It is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal focusing predominantly on nursing and health policy issues of relevance to nurses. The journal solicits original articles that advance the council’s global mission by representing and advancing the profession of nursing, and shaping health policy.
Website: International Nursing Review
Description: This nursing journal offers peer-reviewed, high-quality clinical articles, continuing education, original research and departments that help practitioners as providers of primary and acute care across the lifespan. The journal is an official publication of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and is affiliated with the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners.
Website: Journal for Nurse Practitioners
Description: This is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, professional journal that since 1984 has helped nurses integrate faith and nursing practice. Its stated mission is to help nurses, students and educators practice from a Christian, biblically-based perspective. It offers relevant information on clinical topics, research, healthcare missions, nursing education, ethics, spiritual care, faith community nursing, and self-care and personal growth.
Website: Journal of Christian Nursing
Description: This is a peer reviewed, international scientific journal that seeks to promote the development and exchange of knowledge relevant to nursing practice. The primary aim is to promote a high standard of clinically related scholarship supporting and advancing the practice and discipline of nursing.
Website: Journal of Clinical Nursing
Description: This official journal of the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) focuses on the dissemination of peer-reviewed, high-quality manuscripts relevant to all areas of emergency nursing practice across the lifespan. Its content includes integrative or systematic literature reviews, clinical topics, research and initiatives to improve emergency nurse practice.
Website: Journal of Emergency Nursing
Description: This is an international journal which publishes scholarly papers and research that advance the development of practice, policy, research and education in all aspects of mental health nursing. The journal publishes rigorously conducted research, essays and debates, literature reviews, and consumer practitioner narratives.
Description: This is a leading international journal focused on the global exchange of knowledge in nursing and health science. It also is intended to advance research and practice across health disciplines. The journal provides a forum for original research along with scholarly and systematic reviews focused on health science, clinical practice and education from around the world.
Website: Nursing & Health Sciences
Description: This journal publishes program evaluations, empirical research reports and case reports focused on populations at risk across the lifespan. It also prints articles related to developments in practice; methodological innovations; education of public health nurses; theory development; legal, ethical, and public policy issues in public health; and the history of public health nursing throughout the world.
Website: Public Health Nursing
Information on this page was last updated in June 2021.
