Bibliographical databases

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Bibliographic databases are databases that contain records of paper and/or electronic publications. They are usually broadly subject specific. Frequently they include an abstract of the publication and sometimes they will include a link to the full text of the publication.

Databases available within the LRC

AMED

AMED is a key for physiotherapy material. It covers physiotherapy, rehabilitation, complementary medicine, occupational therapy, podiatry, palliative care and all allied health subjects. AMED covers relevant references from over 500 journals, many not indexed by other more general biomedical sources. Descriptors used in indexing the records are based on MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) but where necessary additional terms have been adopted. This database does not contain the full-text of the journal articles but will usually have an abstract.

Coverage: 1985 onwards. CSP members may access AMED via this website - please make sure you are logged in. If you are a CSP member and don't yet have a username and password please register first.

CINAHL

This database encompasses authoritative coverage of nursing and allied health. It provides access to a large proportion of English-language nursing journals and includes selected articles from approximately 3200 biomedical journals indexed by Index Medicus.

Coverage: 1982 onwards.

EMBASE

This database comprises a collection of biomedical discipline-specific databases including abstracts and citations concerning rehabilitation and physical medicine. It also includes abstracts from other medical disciplines of relevance. This database focuses on all aspects of the rehabilitation of somatic disorders using physiotherapy and other therapeutic modalities. Topics include diagnosis, function tests and evaluation as well as the social, vocational and educational aspects of rehabilitation. Coverage: last ten years.

HMIC - Health Management Information Consortium Database

This database comprises three different components:

  • DH Data (1983-onwards): The core subjects covered by DH data are health service and hospital administration with an emphasis on the British National Health Service.
  • King's Fund database (1979-onwards): The database holds records of the material in the library of the King's Fund. The database contains about 48,000 records mostly with a UK focus on health management and services, community care, service development and NHS organisation and administration.
  • HELMIS (Health information management service database) (1984-1998): The Health information management service database contains over 54,000 records relating to community care and health systems management internationally, but with particular focus on the UK, Europe and developing countries.
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Medline/PubMed

This is a major source of reference in the biomedical field. It covers approximately 3,200 journals worldwide and can be most successfully searched using the National Library of Medicine's controlled indexing terms, known as MeSH - Medical Subject Headings. Although there is limited coverage of physiotherapy journals it is useful for many topics relating to physiotherapy. In the LRC Medline is available from 1993 to present, on PubMed it goes back to the 1950’s.

SportDiscus

This is an international resource for the study of the sports and fitness literature containing bibliographic records, many with abstracts, of serial and monographic literature in the areas of sport, recreation, exercise physiology, sports medicine, coaching, physical fitness, the psychology, history and sociology of sport, training, and conditioning. Coverage from 1830 to present.

Bibliographic databases freely available on the Internet

AgeLine

AgeLine abstracts the literature of social gerontology as well as aging-related research from psychology, sociology, social work, economics, public policy, and the health sciences. It covers aging-related issues for professionals in aging services, health, business, law, and mental health. AgeLine also includes selected consumer content.

AgeLine summarizes journal articles, books and chapters, research reports, dissertations, gray literature, and educational videos from many publishers and organizations, including AARP. Links to full text or ordering options are included wherever possible. AgeLine is produced by AARP’s Research Information Center.

http://www.aarp.org/research/ageline/

Anthrozoology

A web portal for scholarly research in Human Animal Interactions including a searchable database of 1500 references on human-animal interaction and details of research projects. Free on the web: www.anthrozoology.org

CIRRIE Database of International Rehabilitation Research

The CIRRIE Database is produced by the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange. It is international in scope and collects bibliographic citations from all areas of rehabilitation. In addition to indexing from mainstream journals and internet sites. The database has over 30,000 citations. Over 1400 journals are represented, and abstracts are available for most citations. Searches can be limited by Research Area, Geographic Area, language and Year. The database covers 1990 to date.

http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/search/index.php

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Cochrane Library

Cochrane Library – The Cochrane Library is designed to bring together high quality evidence to inform people providing and receiving healthcare, and those responsible for research, teaching, funding and administration at all levels. It is available via the National Library for Health (NLH) http://www.library.nhs.uk/Default.aspx

It is also available in Wales via HOWIS and Northern Ireland via HONNI: see below.

CSP Outcome Measures database

The CSP Outcome Measures database provides details of outcome measures including patient groups, with references provided for original source, reliability, responsiveness and validity.

/director/effectivepractice/outcomemeasures/database.cfm

ERIC

ERIC is a database of journal and non-journal literature produced by the US Education Resource Information Center

http://www.eric.ed.gov/

Intute: health and life sciences (Previously called NMAP)

An online service providing you with access resources for education and research, evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists. There are over 31,000 resource descriptions listed here that are freely accessible for keyword searching or browsing

http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/

NRR National Research Register

The National Research Register has been moved to a searchable electronic archive based on the records collected up to September 2007. It has been replaced by UK Clinical Research Network (see below).

UKCRN

UK Clinical Research Network
The UK Clinical Research Network was established to support clinical research and to facilitate the conduct of trials and other well-designed studies across the UK. As part of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, it works towards the development of a world class infrastructure to support clinical research in the UK.

http://www.ukcrn.org.uk/index.html

PubMed / Medline

PubMed - otherwise know as Medline - is provided by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM). 17 million references to journal articles in life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine. The broad coverage of the database includes basic biomedical research and the clinical sciences since 1951 including nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, allied health, and pre-clinical sciences.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed

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PEDro

PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database produced by The Centre of Evidence-Based Physiotherapy based at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Sydney. It has been developed to give rapid access to bibliographic details and abstracts of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy. Most trials on the database have been rated for quality to help you quickly discriminate between trials that are likely to be valid and interpretable and those that are not.

http://www.pedro.fhs.usyd.edu.au/

REHABDATA

The REHABDATA database contains approximately 69,000 abstracts of books, reports, articles, and audiovisual materials relating to disability and rehabilitation research. Each abstract includes bibliographic information, a 250-word abstract, and, when appropriate, information regarding the project that produced the document. The index spans research from 1956 to the present.

http://www.naric.com/research/

Bibliographic databases via password protected sites on the Internet

AMED Allied and Complementary Medicine database

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If you are a CSP member and don't yet have a username you can register here.

NLH – National Library for Health (England)

On NLH is a link to ‘Clinical Databases’. These resources have been purchased by the National Core Content project, which is funded by the NHS Workforce Development Confederations. These resources are available to all NHS staff and students in higher education in England. Databases provided for the NHS are generally freely available on PCs on the NHSnet and are Athens password protected outside the NHSnet.

N.B. The CSP is not able to supply Athens passwords. Athens passwords can be obtained via your NHS library service or university.

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HONNI - Health On the Net Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland)

Health On the Net Northern Ireland - a gateway to health information provided by the Medical Library at Queen's University, Belfast. The Medical Library is the central library for all Health and Personal Social Services Staff in Northern Ireland. Access from the internet is via an Athens password that can be obtained from Queen’s library service.

Available databases include:

  • BNI -British Nursing Index
  • Caredata
  • Childdata
  • Cinahl
  • Cochrane Library
  • HMIC – Health Management Information Consortium
  • Medline
  • PsycINFO

NHS Scotland e-library (Scotland)

In the NHS Scotland e-library staff and students can access the OVID Online Collection using an Athens password. An Athens password can be obtained via your NHS library service.

The collection includes:

  • Medline
  • Cinahl
  • PsycINFO
  • Embase
  • Evidence Based Medicine Reviews
  • Cochrane Library

HOWIS - Health of Wales Information Service (Wales)

In the NHS Wales site under ‘NHS staff resources’ the following databases are available to NHS Wales staff. Access from the internet is via an Athens password that can be obtained via your NHS library service.

  • Evidence Based Medicine Reviews
  • Medline
  • Cinahl
  • HMIC – Health Management Information Consortium
  • BNI – British Nursing Index
  • PsycINFO
  • Embase
  • The Cochrane library is also in HOWIS but is not password protected
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Literature searching tutorials

There are several literature searching tutorials available on the Internet. Before taking a look, It is worth remembering:

  • a single database - for example Medline - may be presented by a number of suppliers with their own user interface. It may look different and the fields may be given different names but the essential data is the same
  • make sure you are searching the most appropriate database(s) for each search you do. The website or interface supplier should provide details of what the database covers, and what it does not. Check if the journals in which you would expect to find useful information are covered by the database
  • check the date coverage of any database you are using - your supplier may have only bought access to a limited number of years
  • check the website or the library where you are searching - they may have a tutorial available, either online or in the library
  • make the time to do the tutorial. Most bibliographic databases will allow basic word searches but the results may be either only the tip of the iceberg or may produce too many references to handle
  • having obtained a result take a moment to decide if it is reasonable: is there material that you know of that has not been retrieved?

Online Tutorials

  • PubMed Tutorial from NLM
  • Evidence Based Medicine Teaching Materials These sites provide either self-directed learning packages or materials for use in class instruction, produced by Scharr (School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield).
  • Webspirs tutorial The CSP uses Webspirs Information Retrieval System for its AMED database; there is also a guided tour of Silverplatter available here.
Please also see CSP information paper LIS 15 ‘The CSP Guide to Literature Searching’.
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