Research databases and tips

Research and Evidence Based Practise will be one of the major parts of your studies, especially in your last years of studying. Here are the most important databases I am using:

http://scholar.google.com

Use it to:

–Find (scientific) articles through the Google search engine

http://wikipedia.org/

Use it to:

–Get some background information

–Get some specific links

–Get a translation

–Find definitions

Don’t use it as the only source (evidence) for your practice

http://www.pubmed.com

Sign up for free NCBI account

Use it to:

Find articles (links and/or full text) about any medical related subject

Check different tabs:

–Limits

–History

–Details

Menu of the left:

–Tutorials

–PubMed central

http://www.thecochranelibrary.com

Sign up for free account

Use it to:

Find (mostly systematic) reviews only

http://www.pedro.org.au/

Use it to:

–Find (full text) articles specifically about physiotherapy

http://www.bib.hva.nl/hva-dm-gezondheidszorg-eng/object.cfm

Use it to:

–Access different databases at the same time

http://www.picarta.com

Use it to:

–Find the place (library) in Holland where you can find a specific journal (hard copy)

Boolean operators form the basis of mathematical sets and database logic.

They connect your seach words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results.

The three basic boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

Why use Boolean operators?

To focus a search, particularly when your topic contains multiple search terms.

To connect various pieces of information to find exactly what you're looking for.are AND, OR, and NOT

They MUST be capitalized in a search

Use when searching for more than one concept or search statement

When using two or more operators in one search statement:

– the one on the left is processed first

– E.g. influenza AND vaccine OR vaccination would retrieve articles that had both influenza and vaccine and it would also retrieve all articles on vaccination (pneumonia, measles, tetanus, etc.)

–to change the meaning, use parentheses: e.g. influenza AND (vaccine OR vaccination) 

Use the symbol * as a substitute for zero or more characters

–For example, risk* retrieves risk, risks, risk-taking

Uses the first 150 variations with the root

Turns off automatic explosion of MeSH terms

Turns off automatic term mapping

Medical Subject Heading (MeSH)

A controlled vocabulary term used by all the indexers in an organization to ensure consistency in assigning terms to articles (or records) on the same topic. They are also used in searching to avoid having to think of all the possible words that various authors could have used to express the same concept.