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MD Research Project Guide: Use library databases

A guide for the School of Rural Medicine's MD research project

Library databases for medicine

For a comprehensive list of relevant databases, head to A-Z databases - Medical Sciences and the Medicine Research Skills Guide - medical databases.

In this guide we will have a look at the following journal databases in detail:

  • Medline and PsycINFO - both on the Ovid platform, these are the primary databases for biomedical and psychology literature
  • Cochrane Library - an important international and independent source of evidence based medical information
  • CINAHL Plus with Full Text - arguably the most comprehensive nursing and allied health database, on the EBSCO platform
  • Scopus - a citation database of research literature across a large number of subjects
  • Informit Health Collection- An Australian database of entirely full-text content covering allied health, nursing, ageing and aged care, child health, indigenous health, mental health, and rehabilitation

Depending on the emphasis of your research question, another database which may be helpful includes:

  • JBI EBP Database on Ovid - very helpful for evidence-based reviews of evidence
  • ERIC - is the largest education database in the world, and is sponsored by the U.S. Dept of Education

Be sure to contact a Librarian if you need help navigating these resources or for more information do check out the Library's guide - Database Help.

How do Library databases work?

A Library database is an organised collection of indexed information records, most often from journal articles. This is where you would head when you need to search for information published in journals.

An information record in a journal database may contain:

  • Citation details (such as author, date of publication, title, etc)
  • Details describing the publication (such as a summary, contents, abstract, or subject area)
  • Information about its veracity (such as whether it has been peer reviewed, or its citation count)
  • A link to the full text of the document

Some online journals are open access, which means anyone can access the articles freely. However, most online journals require a subscription for access to the full text of articles, which can be very expensive. This is where the Library comes in. We subscribe to thousands of online journals on your behalf. To access them you must go through the Library website - either Primo Search or a link from a journal database. That ensures that you are an authorised user of the material.

For assistance please see our Database Help Library Resource Guide.

Or consider watching one of our Library Research Online Library Workshops

Why should you use Library databases?

Library databases:

  • Are the best source of academic or scholarly information for your assessments
  • help you locate peer reviewed articles
  • Are subject specific, so that you get more relevant results
  • Have many options for refining results

You can find the Library's databases on the A-Z Databases page.

Databases are grouped into subject areas. The Medical Science databases will be particularly useful for your study.

Journal articles and library databases

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