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University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust Health Information Resources Department of Health University of Manchester John Rylands University Library Home Library Catalogue Journals - electronic and print Databases and the web Literature search request Athens registration Interlibrary loan request How to keep up to date

1. Portals and subject gateways
2. Medical search engines
3. Medical images
4. Health news
5. Health statistics
6. Official publications
7. Electronic journals
8. Electronic books
9. Patient information


10. Critical appraisal and EBP
11. Evaluation guides
12. Referencing tools

Health databases

AMED (Allied & Complimentary Medicine)

Indexes articles from approx. 400 mainly European journals covering all aspects of alternative medicine including Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Psychotherapy, Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Rehabilitation and many others.

Bandolier

A premier source of evidence based healthcare information. Provides monthly updates about evidence of effectiveness (or lack of it) based on recent published studies and presents findings as simple bullet points of those things that worked and those that did not. Web version is freely available.

BestBets

Developed in the Emergency Department of MRI, this freely accessible website that provides access to the best current evidence on a wide range of real-life clinical questions and clinical topics allowing physicians to make the best of what there is. Although BETs initially had an emergency medicine focus, there are a significant number of BETs covering cardiothoracics, nursing, primary care and paediatrics.

British Education Index

A database of UK literature that supports educational research, policy and practice. Includes medical education. Access is by subscription but partial free access is available on the web.

British Nursing Index

Indexes articles from over 250 of the most popular nursing and midwifery journals. Coverage of nursing, midwifery and related titles in the UK is comprehensive. A selection of the important international nursing titles are also indexed.

BNF (British National Formulary)

Authoritative and practical information on the selection and clinical use of medicines in a clear, concise and accessible manner. Personal registration or NHS Athens required.

BNF for Children

Paediatric resource for clinical use of medicines in children. Personal registration or NHS Athens required.

CancerLit

A freely available web resource produced by the National Cancer Institute (US) containing more than a million citations and abstracts related to cancer from over 4000 different sources.

CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)

Indexes more than 1,200 international publications to provide comprehensive coverage of all aspects of nursing and allied health information.

Clinical Knowledge Summaries

A practical up-to-date evidence-based source of clinical knowledge for the NHS about the common conditions managed in primary and first contact care. Includes concise summaries on how to manage almost 500 clinical situations (scenarios) commonly encountered in primary and first contact care, are underpinned by detailed up-to-date clinical knowledge on acute and chronic conditions, and disease prevention.

ClinicalTrials.gov

A freely available database produced by the US National Institute of Health comprising of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. Searchable by disease, condition, location, treatment or sponsor.

Cochrane Library

Dedicated to producing and making freely accessible, up-to-date, reliable high quality evidence about the effects of healthcare, on which informed clinical decisions can be based. It is the best single source of clinical evidence about the effects of healthcare interventions for treatment, health promotion and organisation of care.

Current Controlled Trails

Freely available web resource that aims to promote the exchange of information about clinical trials. Includes a facility to search for clinical trials across multiple databases.

DARE - Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects

15,000 abstracts of systematic reviews including over 6,000 quality assessed reviews and details of all Cochrane reviews and protocols, focusing on the effects of interventions used in health and social care.

DH-DATA

A Department of Health (DH) database with emphasis on the management, administration and planning of the NHS. Indexes articles from over 300 relevant journals and includes references to all DI publications. Now can be searched together with the Kings Fund database via the Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database.

DUETS (Database of Uncertainties about the Effects of Treatments)

A freely available UK database publishing uncertainties that cannot currently be answered by referring to reliable up-to-date systematic reviews of existing research evidence. Developed primarily to help those prioritising research in the UK to take account of the information needs of patients, carers and clinicians.

Electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC)

A free resource containing up to date, easily accessible information about medicines licensed for use in the UK. Has more than 6,000 documents, all of which have been checked and approved by either the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) or the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). Lists Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) for many of the medicines that are licensed in the UK, which tells healthcare professionals, such as doctors, pharmacists and nurses, how to prescribe and use a medicine correctly.

EMBASE

International journal coverage of approximately 5,000 journals published in 70 countries (mainly European)relating mainly to the pharmacological effects of drugs and Chemicals. Other aspects of human medicine and related disciplines are also covered.

ERIC (Education Resources Information Centre)

The world’s largest educational database providing free access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials including medical education.

GreenFILE

A database covering all aspects of human impact to the environment and the relationship with disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, etc.

Health Business Elite

A database containing full text content from 480 journals, detailing all aspects of health care administration and other non-clinical aspects of health care institution management. Topics covered include hospital management, hospital administration, marketing, human resources, computer technology, facilities management and insurance.

HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium database)

The Health Management Information Consortium database is a compilation of the databases DH-DATA and the King’s Fund.

King's Fund

Kings Fund is a UK health charity. The database, contains 75, 000 references to official UK health policy documents, and informally published ('grey') literature relating to policy and management of health and social care services in the UK. Now can be searched together with the DH DATA database via the Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database.

Map of Medicine

A visual representation of evidence-based, practice-informed care pathways supporting clinically-led service improvement programmes. The Map has been shown to improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare delivery costs.

Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference

Martindales is A comprehensive and well established database of evaluated information on all aspects of drugs, medicines produced by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Medline

A vast source of international biomedical information produced by the National Library of Medicine (USA). Covering the whole field of medicine including dentistry, veterinary medicine and medical psychology. See also PubMed

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)

A freely available database containing a repository of clinical research which is currently taking place across the UK. It currently contains over 2,500 studies that can be accessed for public searching.

National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)

An independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health. Guidelines can be searched by health topic, type and date. Many Health Development Agency (HDA) publications are also available.

National Prescribing Center - MeReC Publications

MeReC Publications are high quality resources useful to a wide range of healthcare professionals. They provide concise, evidence-based information about medicines and prescribing-related issues, which can inform prescribing practice, update professional knowledge and help support healthcare planning.

National Research Register Archive

OTSeeker - Occupational Therapy Evidence Database

Contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials relevant to occupational therapy. Trials from a wide range of sources have been critically appraised and rated to help you to judge their quality and usefulness.

PEDro - Physiotherapy Evidence Database

Freely available physiotherapy evidence database developed to give physiotherapists and others rapid access details of RCTs in physiotherapy. Most trials on the database have been rated for quality.

PsycINFO

Produced by the American Psychological Association. Indexes over 2000 international journals to provide comprehensive coverage of psychology and allied fields.

PubMed

PubMed is a freely available premier biomedical database produced by the National Library of Medicine (USA). It comprises of Medline (1966 onwards) and Old Medline (1950-1965). It indexes over 4800 journals covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and preclinical sciences.

Social Care Online

Freely available extensive social care information database produced by the Social Care Institute for Excellence. Indexes research briefings, reports, government documents, websites and journal articles.

Teacher Reference Centre (TRC)

Provides coverage on key education topics such as assessment, continuing education, medical education etc. Indexes over 260 of the most popular teaching and administrative trade journals and books.

TRIP Answers

A repository of over 5600 clinical Q&As drawn from a wide number of sources around the world. Each Q&A is evidence graded and can be located via searching or browsing.

TRIP Database (Turning Research Into Practice)

A freely available leading Evidence-Based Medicine resource. Searches over 75 high quality medical sites to find and report on the best available evidence which can be used by professionals answer real clinical questions.

Portals and subject gateways

Medical portals act as one-stop shops for specific groups of people such as dentists, pharmacologists etc. Subject gateways are catalogues of internet resources, some of which evaluate the quality of resources before adding them to their list. They are a good place to start researching a subject.

BUBL Link

Includes several medical health and dental sections.

eMedicine

An open access comprehensive medical textbook for all clinical fields with sections devoted to medical articles and images, as well as patient information.

EQUATOR Network

The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency of health Research) Network is an international initiative that provides online resources, education and training supporting good health research reporting practice, and supports the development of robust reporting guidelines.

Google Web Directory

A collection of health related websites evaluated by Open Directory volunteer editors, and the sites are ranked by Google based on their importance.

Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources

Designed the best lists or directories of information in health and medicine.

INFOcus Web Directory

A directory of hundreds of carefully selected and appraised websites - each indexed into one of the subject headings relevant to clinical and non-clinical staff in the NHS. Please note, this site is no longer being updated.

Intute: Health and Life Sciences

A high quality UK gateway to health, biomedicine, allied health and health management websites. Resources in INTUTE have undergone a strict process of selection, evaluation and description.

Mayo Clinic

A not-for-profit medical practice with hospital and research facilities across the US. Contributions from over 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers.

Martindale's Health Science Guide

Jim Martindale's extensive guide to multimedia resources, including teaching files, medical cases, courses/textbooks, graphic displays and movies.

Medic8

A medical portal for healthcare professionals and consumers around the world, providing access to peer-reviewed resources.

MedBioWorld

Provides access to medical and bioscience journals, associations, databases and other medical resources, 'With over 35,000 links, is the largest medical and bioscience resource directory on the Internet.'

Medicines Management

Useful information resource designed to help pharmacists and pharmacy staff find useful information about medicines using the internet and provides suggestions on how to approach various types of questions.

Medical Matrix

A major ranked, peer-reviewed web based clinical medical resource.

MEDLINEplus

Quality medical information for health professionals and consumers, from the US National Library of Medicine. Includes an extensive Health Topics section, as well as dictionaries and a medical encyclopaedia.

Medscape

A free website designed to provide clinicians and other healthcare professionals with the most timely comprehensive and relevant clinical information to improve patient care.

National Electronic Library for Medicines (NeLM)

The largest medicines information portal for healthcare professionals in the UK. The site has a wide range of information products, including news, evidence-based reviews on drugs and drug therapy and health promotion material.

Netdoctor

Explains in a clear and straightforward manner the common medical examinations and procedures performed by doctors and specialists in the UK. Includes encyclopaedias on diseases and medicines.

NHS Evidence

The national web-based information service for the NHS provided by NICE designed to provide a single route to existing scattered evidence based information resourses to assist busy practitioners find all the information available. The service is still developing and will soon include an accreditation scheme to help guide decisions.

Quackwatch - Interesting Websites

A large directory of helath websites updated monthly. Quackwatch compilers state that most sites listed have substantial original information or valuable archives providing carefully inspected, accurate and practical information, and unless otherwise noted, are considered trustworthy.

The Virtual Library

The oldest catalogue on the web maintained by run by a loose confederation of volunteers.

Yahoo!

A popular catalogue arranged in broad subject sections, including health.

Medical search engines

Generic web search engines like Google can of course be used to retrieve useful healthcare information, but there are also search engines that are dedicated to do just that. There is a significant trend towards single search engines, also known as cross search or meta search engines.

Health Sciences Online

HSO is the first website to deliver authoritative, comprehensive, free, and ad-free health sciences knowledge. Search and browse any health sciences topic from over 50,000 courses, references, guidelines, and other learning resources. Materials are selected from accredited educational sources including universities, governments, and professional societies, by HSO staff.

HONselect and MedHunt

A medical and health search engine that combines five information types - MeSH terms, authoritative scientific articles, healthcare news, Web sites and multimedia into one service to focus and accelerate your search.

NLH search

A one-stop single search interface for a large number of resources, including the NLH Specialist Libraries, guidelines databases, sources of evidence, and the national Core Content (Medline and other Dialog databases, as well as full-text books and journals).

OmniMedicalSearch

A metasearch engine, OmniMedicalSearch produces search results from several search engines.

SUMSearch

This search engine from the University of Texas Health Science Centre lets you specify an evidence-based focus (e.g. treatment, diagnosis, etiology, prognosis). It then searches for practice guidelines and systematic reviews across a selection of resources including the US National Guideline Clearinghouse, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, DARE and PubMed.

PrimeAnswers

'Provides access to high quality information for primary care providers. Best-evidence documents from multiple sources have been indexed by UW [University of Washington] information experts to provide fast access at the point of care.' Searches across a variety of sources e.g. Clinical Evidence, Cochrane, the US National Guidelines Clearinghouse, and NEJM's Clinical Practice.

Scirus

Described as 'the most comprehensive science-specific search engine available on the Internet'. From Elsevier.

NLM Gateway

The US National Library of Medicine Gateway allows users to search across Medline and other NLM databases.

Medical images

DOIA/PedOIA

Available via the Dermatology Information Service. Browsable and searchable images & atlases covering dermatology and paediatric dermatology.

Gray’s Anatomy

Hardin MD Medical Pictures/Disease Pictures

HEAL

HON Medical Images and Video Repository

Images from the History of Medicine

A free database of nearly 60,000 images in the prints and photograph collection of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Includes portraits, pictures of institutions, caricatures, genre scenes, and graphic art in a variety of media, illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine.

Medical Images and Illustrations

NHS Evidence Images

Public Health Image Library (PHIL)

Wellcome Images

Health news

BBC Health News

Behind the Headlines

British Nursing News Online

Google Health News Search

Reuters Health Information

Health statistics

Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO)

APHO represents a network of 12 public health observatories in the UK. It produces key public health information for practitioners, policy makers and the wider communities.

Compendium of Clinical and Health Indicators (NCHOD)

Contains information on health outcomes and health indicators including comparative data for 700 health and local government organisations in England. Also includes advise on how to measure the impact of health care.

DH Statistics

Information Centre for Health and Social Care

Provides a wide range of statistical information on various health topics such as hospital care, screening, mental health, presented in a way to assist the NHS and social care services.

Manchester Joint Health Unit

Manchester NHS site from which you can download the Manchester Public Health Annual Report and the Compendium of Health Statistics for the city.

National Statistics

Official UK statistics about health, health services provided by the NHS and social care.

WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS)

The WHO Statistical Information System is the guide to health and health-related epidemiological and statistical information available from the World Health Organization.

Official publications

DOH Publications Library

Department of Health site of official publications site - includes all DH publications and replaces the previous POINT and COIN libraries.

The Official Documents Website

Contains full text or summary of selected documents prepared for the internet by The Stationery Office.

Electronic journals

BioMed Central

Publisher of more than 150 peer-reviewed open access journals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Quality-controlled scientific and scholarly journals covering all subjects and languages.

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek

A massive listing of electronic medical journals held in 120 German academic libraries. Many titles are English. Access to the full text of any title with a green dot beside it is freely available. Can search by subject.

ERC Library

Wythenshawe Hospital. Our online e-journals catalogue provides direct links to the entire collection of NHS full-text e-journals, various free e-journals plus all the e-journals that we ourselves have subscribed to.

FreeMedicalJournals.com

Lists free medical journals on the web.

Genamics Journal Seek

The largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet.

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research

Large collection of full-text journals mainly in English or Spanish. Very useful for an overview of what's available for free within each medical specialism.

Highwire Press

Stanford University Libraries. Major source of free articles on the Internet.

MedBio World

Links to over 25,000 electronic journals, associations and databases. Includes subject index to find journals for a particular speciality and ranks journals by impact factor. Some journals having searchable access to archived articles with abstracts or full-text.

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

A non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.

PubMed Central

U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

Electronic books

E-Books

See the Electronic Books link on our home page.

Patient information

Behind the Headlines

Provides an unbiased and evidence-based daily analysis of the science behind health stories that make the news. Part of NHS Choices.

BMJ Best Treatments

Freely available via the Guardian Newspaper website, BMJ Best Treatments provides independent, high quality patient information on a wide range of health issues and medical conditions.

BUPA Health Factsheets

Health information and factsheets produced by Bupa's health information team. The information is reviewed and approved by relevant healthcare professionals, including doctors, dentists, nurses, physiotherapists and dietitians.

Clinical Knowledge Summaries - Information for Patients

CKS provides access to reliable and up-to-date patient information developed by The Arthritis Research Campaign, Epilepsy Research UK, The Family Planning Association and NHS Direct.

Dr Foster Health & Medical Guides

The UK's leading provider of comparative information on health and social care services. Provides information on birth, hospital, consultants and complimentary therapists.

Easy Health

DoH Funded website providing clear patient information for the public and for health professionals. Includes links to Patient information leaflets and self-examination videos.

EQUIP - Electronic Quality Information for the Public

Electronic Quality Information for the Public is an NHS gateway to quality health and social care information which links only to quality assured websites. You can also search the directory of over 4000 national and local support groups and services which are checked regularly.

Healthtalkonline

Award-winning website of the DIPEx charity and replaces the website formerly at dipex.org. Shares other people's experiences of health and illness to enable patients, families and healthcare professionals to benefit from the experiences of others. You can watch or listen to videos of the interviews, read about people's experiences and find reliable information about conditions, treatment choices and support.

Information Prescription Service

The Information Prescription Service (IPS) allows users, both professional and public, to create information prescriptions(IPs) for long-term health needs. Both patients and carers can use the tool to find information they can trust and rely on about specific conditions and local services.

Map of Medicine

A web-based visual representation of evidence-based patient care journeys covering 28 medical specialties and over 340 pathways. This is a free version available for patients.

NetDoctor

Medical information and health website. Health advice on diseases, conditions, examinations and treatments. Latest health news, answers to health questions etc.

NHS Choices

A comprehensive service providing provides a single 'front door' for the public to all NHS online services and information through the country’s biggest health website. Sections include: Medical advice now, Find services, Health A-Z, Compare hospitals, Carers direct, NHS information, Medicine guides etc.

NHS Evidence Patient Information

A comprehensive collection of resources selected for their value to patient and non-clinicians. Over 100 sites accredited by NHS Direct Online are searched here. You can also search and browse the NHS Health Encyclopaedia for patient information print-outs.

Patient UK

PatientsLikeMe

Youthhealthtalk

Wrong Diagnosis

Critical appraisal and Evidence based practice

AGREE: Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)

JAMA Users' Guides

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

The ‘What is?’ series

How to read a paper. 2nd ed. 2000.

The James Lind Library

Bandolier Glossary

JAMA Evidence Glossary

Evaluation guides

Anyone can create a web page. It is crucial therefore to assess the value of what you find by appraising the quality. The following sites help you do this.

Discern

A brief questionnaire which provides users with a valid and reliable way of assessing the quality of written information on treatment choices for a health problem.

Internet Detective

A free online tutorial designed to help student develop Internet research skills. The tutorial looks at the critical thinking required when using the Internet for research and offers practical advice on evaluating the quality of web sites.

Appraising internet sites

A very useful downloadable flow chart designed by Cardiff University, to help you appraise information obtained from websites.

Internet Medic

A 'teach yourself' tutorial on internet information skills for medics (from Intute's Virtual Training Suite of free online tutorials).

Open University - iKnow

QuackWatch

A site dedicated to reporting medical fraud and quackery.

Referencing tools

Referencing@Portsmouth

Neil's Toolbox

Two useful free internet based tools which show you how to create references or, in the case of Neil's Toolbox, actually create the reference for you.