Which database should I use?
Your topic of interest should be ‘matched’ as far as possible with the type of subject information included on the database you choose. The type of subject information on several databases may be similar, but the emphasis in each will tend to be different.
Citation databases on CIAP include:
| Database | Primary emphasis |
|---|---|
| Embase | Embase (Excerpta Medica Database) is a biomedical and pharmacological database produced by Elsevier B.V., containing more than 30 million records including articles from more than 8,500 journals published world-wide. It contains bibliographic records with citations, abstracts, and indexing derived from biomedical articles in peer reviewed journals, and is especially strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research, pharmacology, and toxicology. It also covers clinical medicine and its specialties, and medical devices. Embase covers some unique content not indexed by MEDLINE. Since 2010 Embase has included all the records from MEDLINE. |
| Emcare | Emcare is a nursing and allied health database. It contains over 5 million records dating from 1995 form international journals and books, over 1,800 of which are not available from other nursing databases. Its coverage includes nursing, community practice, healthcare information and management, nutrition and dietetics, occupational health, physiotherapy, psychology, rehabilitation, and social medicine. |
| Maternity and Infant Care | Maternity and Infant Care is a database for healthcare professionals involved in the care of women and infants. This unique database contains over 225,000 bibliographic references with abstracts to articles from over 400 international English language journals, books, guidelines, and grey literature relating to the midwifery profession, pregnancy, labour, birth, postnatal care, infant feeding, and neonatal care up to the second year of an infant’s life, and the transition to parenthood |
| MEDLINE | MEDLINE is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's database covering the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and healthcare. Information is indexed from approximately 5,600 journals published world-wide. Records start in the early 1800's and is updated daily. |
| PreMEDLINE | PreMEDLINE (PREM) is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's in-process database for MEDLINE, it provides basic information and abstracts for records before they are indexed with their MeSH heading/s and included into the full MEDLINE database or converted to out-of-scope status, so, will never be indexed and included in MEDLINE. New records are added daily to PreMEDLINE, appearing when the content of the record meets the scope of the PreMEDLINE databases. After MeSH terms, publication types, GenBank accession numbers, and other indexing data are incorporated into a PreMEDLINE record, the completed citation is added to MEDLINE. Use PreMEDLINE to complement a Medline search and to capture very recent articles. |
| ProQuest (not on the Ovid platform) | The ProQuest Health and Medicine database provides information from journal articles, books, videos, and dissertations relevant to nursing, allied health, and health administration professionals. The database contains information that relates to clinical and biomedical fields, consumer health, healthcare research, development, and regulatory issues. |
| PsycINFO | The PsycINFO® database provides abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioural, and health sciences. The database includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work. Updated weekly, PsycINFO® provides access to journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations. |
| PubMed (not on the Ovid platform) | PubMed comprises over 26 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of biomedicine and health, covering portions of the life sciences, behavioural sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It also contains some search features useful for quickly searching for high quality evidence. |
Most citation databases require a subscription, but others are freely available on the internet. These include PubMed, OTseeker (Occupational Therapy Interventions Database of Systematic Review Abstracts), PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database of Systematic Review Abstracts), NeuroBITE (Psychological Database for Brain Impairment Treatment Efficacy), and speechBITE (Speech Pathology Practice Interventions Database of Systematic Review Abstracts). Links to these databases are available on CIAP for ease of use.
What other considerations are important when selecting a database?
- Content
- The type of information available (content) is important, as is the breadth of your search. How widely do you need to search? Does the database you are considering cover citations for books, reports, conference proceedings, and research theses in addition to journal articles? The content is determined by commercial agreements between journals, publishers, and database companies. Although there may be some overlap in the content between databases, each has a particular focus as described above.
- Limits
- Each database has a slightly different number and type of ‘limits’, which help you to make your search more specific. Do the limits available enable you to specify the material you are looking for, for example, various forms of secondary evidence?
- Origin
- The origin of the database content is important in regard to the breadth of material that can be sourced via the database. For example, where are the majority of journals on the database sourced from? If you are looking for information from international sources you will need to choose a database that contains a range of international content. It is also useful to know the country of origin in relation to spelling and medical terminology.
Should I use one or more databases for my search?
Each database is likely to provide slightly different results, owing to the different journals and books it is searching across. Despite the potential for duplication, it is still beneficial to search across several databases for a thorough investigation of a topic. For preparation of evidence-based protocols and guidelines searching across several databases is essential.
Help