Key Research Databases
- PubMedPubMed comprises more than 20 million citations from biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life sciences journals, and online books. One of the most used health and medicine resources.
- ScopusSearch a BUNCH of journals all at once with great filters like: most cited, impact factors, and related woks.
- ClinicalKeyClinical Key offers comprehensive medical information available in one convenient online resource. (Point-of-care, handouts, reference sources, etc.)
- TRIPA clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice.
For more subject-specific databases, click into the certificate subtabs.
Building an In-depth Search: General Health
At some point, you will be asked to write on or explore a topic that is more in-depth; which will require a more in-depth search. This can be a big task and where do you begin?
- I always start with the same table as seen below to keep my thoughts organized. To begin, I write my original concepts on the left side.
- Next, I see if the database I am using has a thesaurus/subject headings and if there is one that matches my original concept. (MeSH is found in PubMed). I do this to understand how my term will be interpreted and if I agree. These subject headings/MeSH terms are official cateogories that are used to organize the articles in the database.
- The last column is designed for words that are not included in the designated subject heading terminology or other synonyms in which my concept could be referred to. You may want to include other words (synonyms) or using the word OR in your search to ensure you are getting all the relevant material.
Taking your topic to a search - This document provides a template on how to format your research question as well as how to break down your main concepts into a table like the one seen above. This method will help you to identify the best words to search to find relevant articles.