Searching the medical literature

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Searching the medical literature

• The Royal Childrens Hospital Library
• www.rch.org.au/library
• Poh Chua x 55107
• poh.chua_at_rch.org.au

Oct 2014
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Library membership

• Join the library to borrow items.
• Register at the library, or download the library
  membership form at www.rch.org.au/library/membersh
  ip.php.
• NB To use most of the library resources from
  home, you will need to register for Athens at
  https//register.athensams.net/chc/. Once you
  have completed the online form, you will see a
  confirmation with your username. You will also
  receive an email which you have to authenticate
  to set your password.
• All Athens registrations must be done on site
  unless you are using _at_rch or _at_mcri email
  addresses.

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Goals

• To search for evidence-based care related
  literature in a variety of databases
• To become familiar with the strengths and
  weaknesses of different databases
• To become familiar with different search
  techniques for different databases.

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Step 1 The question

• In patients with conjunctivitis (population)
• does antibiotic treatment (intervention)
• compared with no treatment, or delayed treatment
  (comparison)
• reduce the severity and duration of
  conjunctivitis (outcome)
• A question of therapy.

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Step 2 Using the question to identify search
terms

• Population conjunctivitis (Medical Subject
  Headings , MeSH)
• Intervention anti-bacterial agents (MeSH)
• Comparator placebo
• Outcome conjunctivitis (MeSH)

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Step 3 Choosing the database

• Search the resources in the order listed
• ClinicalKey ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.phpebl
  
• OvidMD ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.phpebl
• BMJ Best Practice ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.p
  hpebl
• DynaMed ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.phpebl
• Cochrane Library ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.ph
  pebl
• SumSearch2 ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.phpebl
  
• Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase EbscoHost Medline
  EbscoHost Cinahl - limiting to Clinical Queries
  ww2.rch.org.au/library/dbases.phpjournalref.
  Alternatively, use PubMeds Clinical Queries
  (under PubMed tools on the PubMed home page).

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ClinicalKey

• Searches the following books, journals, the
  Clinics of North America series of journals,
  patient education, drugs, multimedia and
  guidelines.
• Off-site access is via Athens.
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Supports the use of parentheses ( ).

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ClinicalKey

• Register/Login to use the Presentation Maker and
  to add items to the Reading List.
• Content type Journals denotes available in Full
  text, as opposed to content type MEDLINE, which
  is not the full text but means is indexed in
  Medline. Vitals is a succinct, point-of-care
  content type relatively new to ClinicalKey. It is
  summarised information taken from the Clinics of
  North America. Vitals are still in Beta testing
  phase.
•  

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OvidMD

• Searches the following books, journals, patient
  education, drugs, guidelines and UpToDate
  (subscription required to view full text).
• Off-site access is via Athens.
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Supports the use of parentheses ( ).

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OvidMD
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BMJ Best Practice

• Off-site access is via Athens.
• Find the information you need by using Show
  conditions, or the Search BMJ Best Practice box.
• Each topic is divided into the following
  sections Highlights, Basics, Prevention,
  Diagnosis, Treatment, Follow Up, and Resources.
• In the Treatment section, there may be an
  Evidence subsection with links to Clinical
  Evidence.
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Does not support the use of parentheses ( ).

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DynaMed

• Athens login is required for off-site access.
• DynaMed is a point-of-care reference resource
  designed to provide clinicians with the best
  available evidence to support clinical
  decision-making.
• DynaMed is available as a mobile application,
  compatible with devices such as the Android,
  BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, just to
  name a few. For more information, see
  http//dynamed.ebscohost.com/access/mobile.
• Search DynaMed using the Search box, Browse A-Z,
  or Browse Categories.
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Supports the use of parentheses ( ).

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DynaMed
DynaMed
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Cochrane Library

• See Library fact sheet no. 5 at
  ww2.rch.org.au/library/factsheets.php.
• Must search both keywords and thesaurus (MeSH).
• Remember to add search query to Search Manager
  (equivalent to Search History).
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Supports the use of parentheses ( ).
• Access is free to everyone in Australia.

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Cochrane Library
Use Advanced Search to search The Cochrane
Library
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Cochrane Library search history
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SUMSearch 2

• SUMSearch2 is a free search engine.
• SUMSearch2 will search PubMed, DARE (Other
  Reviews in The Cochrane Library) and the National
  Guideline Clearinghouse (USA).
• Use asterisk for truncation/wildcard.
• Supports the use of parentheses ( ).
• Supports both keywords and MeSH (thesaurus)
  searching.
• Search terms will automatically be connected by
  AND.
• Results are listed in categories.

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SUMSearch2
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Medline / PubMed and Cinahl

• Medline is available via Ovid and EbscoHost.
  Athens login is required for off-site access.
• PubMed is the free version of Medline and is
  available from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.
• Cinahl is via the EbscoHost interface. Athens
  login is required for off-site access.
• Applying the appropriate clinical queries in
  Ovid, PubMed and EbscoHost is an effective way to
  limit search results.

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Limiting to Clinical Queries in Ovid
Use Additional Limits icon to access Clinical
Queries options
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Limiting to Clinical Queries in Ovid
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Limiting to Clinical Queries in PubMed
Select Clinical Queries in PubMed Tools
Enter search terms into the search box
Select the required Category and Scope
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Limiting to Clinical Queries in EbscoHost
Use Edit to access Clinical Queries options
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Limiting to Clinical Queries in EbscoHost
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Step 4 Evaluate search results from various
databases

• Relevant trials?