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Cochrane Collection Plus is the most comprehensive collection of databases from the Cochrane Library. Cochrane Collection Plus is an essential source of high quality health care data for providers, patients and those responsible for researching, teaching, funding and administrating at all levels of the medical profession. Cochrane Collection Plus combines the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), Cochrane Clinical Answers, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Cochrane Methodology Register. Content: Mostly full-text (some full-text articles are through links). Publisher: Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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PubMed is a version of MEDLINE which is available directly from the National Library of Medicine. Provides indexing for all areas of medicine including over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Coverage: 1949 - present.
Using the thesaurus or index terms, also called a controlled vocabulary, used by the database editors takes the guess work out of searching. Since we have many different ways of describing concepts, drawing all of these terms together under a single word or phrase in a database makes searching the database more efficient as it eliminates guess work.
Conducting a search in a database that uses controlled vocabulary or indexing terms is efficient and precise. The biggest advantage to controlled vocabulary is that once you do find the correct term, most of the information you need is grouped together in one place, saving you the time of having to search under all of the other synonyms for that term.
Click on the tutorial below for help creating better queries for PubMed.
This link opens in a new windowProvides in-depth research coverage to international literature in psychology and related disciplines including education, business, medicine, nursing, law, and social work. Publisher: American Psychological Association. Coverage: 1800's - present.
This link opens in a new windowArticles from journals published by the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe & Huber. Covers all psychology-related subjects. Coverage: 1894 - present.
This link opens in a new windowWhen researching, you need to find specific types of scholarly sources. Below are a few search strategies.
Try different versions of your keywords as you search for information. For example: when searching health care access also try health services accessibility or health equity.
In the results check the subject headings or keywords for additional search terms to either add to your search or use instead of a current search term. Please note, subject headings are not consistent across databases.
Selection of appropriate search terms is very important. Connect the search terms for your question using the Boolean operator AND. Quotation marks are a great search feature when you need to search a phrase. Also, truncate words using the * symbol to search for variant word endings. Here are some examples:
It is often useful to use the advanced search screens in the article databases.
Please feel free to reach out to me for any research assistance or questions.