Health Services Management Centre School of Social Policy
“Once you have experienced the library you won't want to be without it” Chris Ham, Professor of Health Policy, HSMC & Chief Executive of the King’s Fund
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Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Searching Databases ............................................................................................. 2 Searching Techniques – Some Basic Principles ....................................................... 2 What are some of the basic principles? ................................................................. 2 Defining your search ........................................................................................... 2 Use Boolean Operators (AND , OR, NOT) ............................................................... 2 Use Truncation................................................................................................... 3 Use Parenthesis / Brackets .................................................................................. 3 Use Controlled Vocabulary ................................................................................... 3 Using other limits .................................................................................................. 3 Publication date ................................................................................................. 3 Material type ..................................................................................................... 3 Language .......................................................................................................... 3 Study design ..................................................................................................... 3 Search on specific fields ...................................................................................... 3 There’s plenty more help out there…………. ................................................................ 4 Databases available ............................................................................................... 4 ASSIA ............................................................................................................... 4 Cochrane Library ................................................................................................ 4 Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) ........................................ 4 CRD databases .................................................................................................. 4 DARE ................................................................................................................ 4 EMBASE ............................................................................................................ 4 Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) .............................................. 5 Medline ............................................................................................................. 5 Free Access .......................................................................................................... 5 Healthworks ...................................................................................................... 5 Infotrieve .......................................................................................................... 5 PubMed ............................................................................................................. 5 National Library for Health (NLH) ......................................................................... 5 National Research Register .................................................................................. 5 Social Sciences Citation Index.............................................................................. 5 TRIP ................................................................................................................. 5
Introduction The aim of this guide is to assist you in searching for information using a variety of health- related databases that are available to you. A number of databases will be highlighted in this guide – some of these are available from the HSMC web pages, some from Information Services, and some are freely available over the Internet. A brief description of each database will be given, as will information on how to access. As well as detailing a number of resources, this guide will offer advice on how to search them effectively. In particular, it will link to a lot of learning sets, tutorials and guides that are already available freely on the Internet to assist both novice and more experienced users.
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Searching Databases Searching Techniques – Some Basic Principles One of the difficulties inherent in literature searching is the fact that different software developers / database providers adopt an array of systems/language/features which the user needs to get to grips with in order to search. Therefore, because you have mastered Medline, you will not necessarily to search HMIC in the same way! Similarly, individual databases can be provided by different hosts (e.g. Ovid), which have different search interfaces. However, the good news is that any reputable database should be developed with certain features to assist the user in maximising the relevance of the search returns. Therefore, grounding in the basic principles should stand you in good stead for searching different databases using different systems. What are some of the basic principles? Defining your search If we take the example “What is public opinion on the ethics of health care rationing in the NHS?” It is important to ensure that: 1. All the concepts are included to minimise the number of irrelevant returns (e.g. in this case a search on “rationing” on a health-related database should give you a lot of relevant items, but potentially thousands of items which do not specifically address the question!) 2. You have included synonyms to ensure that you do not miss potentially relevant documents. Therefore, with regards to the question in hand you might want to include the following terms (and no doubt think of many others to add to the list) Intervention Main subject area Specific Angle Rationing Decision making Resource allocation National Health Service
Heathcare Health services NHS Patient Views
Public opinion Consumer Views Attitudes Citizens Juries
Use Boolean Operators (AND , OR, NOT) Most databases offer this feature to widen or narrow down a search. In the above example we could use OR within each search section above to widen the search E.g. Rationing OR Decision-making OR Resource Allocation You could then focus the search by using the AND operator to narrow down i.e.: only retrieve those items, which include; Intervention AND Main subject area AND Specific angle In this case you may want to use the NOT operator e.g. NOT United States would exclude US material. But: this needs to be used with caution e.g. in this instance you might remove some international comparative literature on the US and UK. Some databases will use symbols to represent the Boolean operators (e.g. & , -) . It is a case of using the help provided by each database to determine the language they have adopted. Updated Friday, 12 February 2010
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Use Truncation Often represented by the symbols * or $ or &. This is another way to try and capture all relevant material by searching for words / phrases which use the same root. E.g. Ration* AND health service* AND consumer* Includes: Ration Rationing
Health service Health services
Consumer Consumerism Consumers
Use Parenthesis / Brackets Often you can use brackets to group terms together and relate them to other terms enclosed in brackets. This cuts down the amount of search steps that you have to do. E.g. (ration* OR decision making OR resource allocation) AND (healthcare OR health service* OR NHS OR National Health Service) AND (Consumer* OR public opinion* OR attitude* OR citizen jur*) Use Controlled Vocabulary The above examples use words or phrases (often referred to as “keywords”), which we think may be helpful in retrieving relevant documents. However, a lot of databases will have their own thesaurus of terms that have been specifically developed and used to capture the subject nature of the individual documents / articles contained within. One of the most developed and sophisticated thesauri is the MESH thesaurus used to index articles in Medline. Sometimes its US bias can be a bit confusing at first (e.g. they use the thesaurus term “family practice” rather than “general practice”). However the use of the thesaurus can greatly enhance the accuracy of search results. Also, the Medline MESH terms are applied to the articles in the Embase and Econlit databases – therefore you can save time by running the same search across other databases! Using other limits When constructing your question, it is important to think about other factors, which may be relevant, as most databases will give you the option to define other areas as well as the search terms. E.g. Publication date If you only want to search back on the last 5 years, there will be a facility to do so. Material type You may want to retrieve only journal articles, not books / reports as well. Language Only retrieve articles written in English. Study design Some databases (e.g. Medline) enable to restrict by study design e.g. search only for review articles or randomised controlled trials. Search on specific fields As well as utilizing the controlled vocabulary options described above, many databases have the facility for you to search in specific fields, rather than input words or phrases Updated Friday, 12 February 2010
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“free-text” which search across the database. For example, you can search for information within titles or within abstracts. There’s plenty more help out there…………. The above has tried to capture some of the main areas you may want to consider when designing your search strategy and has attempted to highlight some of the search features that you might expect to be provided across many different databases. There are a number of Internet sites and guides, which provide additional help. Some examples: Library of Birmingham guide: Effective searching of electronic resources CSP Guide to literature searching Berkshire Health Informatics Shared Service: Quick guide to literature searching The Shrewsbury and Teleford Hospital NHS Trust:Searching Healthcare Databases Databases available There are a number of health related databases at your disposal which are accessible either through the; HSMC library, the Main University of Birmingham Library via the ELibrary, the National Library for Health (NLH) or, are free on the internet. Full access details including password requirements can be found on the library’s website at: www.hsmc.bham.ac.uk/library ASSIA www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk The Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts is a general social science database incorporating 550 UK Social Science journals, and also some health-related material. Cochrane Library www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) Includes on going and published systematic reviews designed to provide high quality evidence on health care interventions via the National Library for Health (NLH) Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) This international database covers journal articles relating to nursing and applied health. It includes mainly abstracts with selected full text. Coverage is from 1982 onwards. CRD databases http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/crddatabases.htm (free) A key resource for health professionals, policy makers and researchers which systematically identifies and describes systematic reviews and economic evaluations, appraising their quality and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses DARE www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness - a database of high quality systematic research reviews of the effectiveness of health care interventions. Produced by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York. EMBASE www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) Updated Friday, 12 February 2010
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EMBASE covers all aspects of human medicine and related biomedical research, including comprehensive information on Drugs and toxicology. Also good European coverage. Includes data from 3500 biomedical journals published in 110 countries, dating back to 1980. The database contains more than 5 million records and is updated monthly. More than two-thirds of the records include abstracts. Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) www.hsms.bham.ac.uk/library www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) Contains three databases covering information relating to the management of health and social services: the Department of Health database covers the health service, health policy and management, and social services; the HELMIS database has details of management issues in health systems in the UK, Europe and developing countries; and the King's Fund Library database includes information on NHS management, health care financing, and health and race. Medline www.nlh.nhs.uk (NHS users) www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk A comprehensive medical database going back to 1966. Available through a number of routes: Free Access There are a number of free access sites, available without restriction over the Internet Healthworks at: http://www.healthworks.co.uk/ Infotrieve at: http://www3.infotrieve.com/medline/infotrieve/ PubMed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Pubmed/ National Library for Health (NLH) The NLH is freely available on the web at: www.nlh.nhs.uk Most of the information is freely available although certain aspects are password protected and only free to NHS staff. National Research Register Ongoing and recently completed research projects funded by the UK's National Health Service. The first release contains information on over 28,000 research projects, as well as entries from the Medical Research Council's Clinical Trials Register, and details on reviews in progress collected by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination Social Sciences Citation Index www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk One of the Web of Science ISI databases, it indexes social sciences journals, giving bibliographic details (including any references that are cited). Many entries also include abstracts (summary of articles). Coverage is from 1981 onwards. TRIP http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html (free) Turning Research Into Practice - a combination of 18 databases of hyperlinks. At present there are over 3000 links to evidence based topics. Please click out the library’s website at: www.hsmc.bham.ac.uk/library/ for a comprehensive list of useful databases.
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