Databases for my subject
Databases are searchable electronic tools which help you to identify journal articles, books and chapters in books, conference papers and other sources useful for your studies. A considerable number of the journals indexed are available in the Learning Resource Centres in print or in electronic full-text from the library catalogue. Some (bibliographic) databases just include abstracts which summarise what an article is about, and then give you a WebBridge link back to the catalogue to check if we have the journal in-house.
Brief details of the databases relevant to health courses are given below. The heading for each group leads to a page with fuller descriptions.
Healthcare databases
- AMED - nursing, allied and alternative medicine topics.
- British Nursing Database - UK based index for nursing and allied healthcare. Please note that Discover does NOT search the British Nursing Database. | British Nursing Database help guide [PDF]
- CINAHL Complete - nursing, midwifery and general healthcare. | CINAHL help guide [PDF]
- Global Health - specialist database relating to global public and environmental health. A key resource for public health students.
- Medline - very broad US-based general medical database.
- PsycARTICLES - full text articles on psychology and mental health.
- PsycINFO - general database of psychology and mental health.
Free online healthcare databases
- Cochrane Library - systematic reviews. Gold-standard research. | Introductory tutorial | Searching tutorial
- PubMed Central - Free online digital archive of the U.S. National Institute of Health. Covers biomedical and life sciences journals.
- UK PubMed Central - Free UK archive of health and biomedical sciences literature.
Databases for related subjects
- Annual Reviews - covers 29 biomedical, physical and social science disciplines.
- Education Research Complete - excellent full-text database covering all aspects of education, including health care.
- ISI Web of Science - research index.
- SocINDEX - a wide ranging social science database with links to some full-text articles.
Useful general databases
- Academic Search Complete - full-text articles on general academic subjects.
- Credo Reference - searchable digital reference guide containing 100 reference sources including subject dictionaries, encyclopaedias, biographical sources and quotations.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - full-text, open access articles.
- Sage Premier (to 2016) - multidisciplinary database which includes several health care journals.
- Scopus - abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature with over 20,500 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide.
- Newsbank - searchable database of newspapers.