Education and Research Centre Library Health Web Resources Page

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.

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 via NHS Evidence
British Nursing Index via OvidSP
British Nursing Index via ProQuest

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. NPersonal 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) via NHS Evidence
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) via EBSCO

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 providing concise readily accessible summaries on how to manage over 300 common and/or significant primary care presentations commonly encountered in primary and first contact care, all underpinned by the latest evidence.

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 Trials

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.

DynaMed

DynaMed is a point-of-care clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals and students. It is a resource for answering most clinical questions and contains clinically-organized summaries for thousands of topics.
To access DynaMed externally using an Athens account, click here.

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 via NHS Evidence
EMBASE via OvidSP

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

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.

EThOS - British Electronic Theses Online Service

A database containing 250,000+ records to provide a 'single point of access' to all theses produced by UK Higher Education. Many UK institutions support Open Access to their theses, so download of their digital and digitised theses is free to the researcher. A small number of participating institutions may not be able to offer Open Access and in this case the researcher may have to pay for the digitisation.

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) via NHS Evidence
HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium database) via OvidSP

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

Index to Theses

A comprehensive listing of theses with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland since 1716. 562,226 theses in collection (329,622 of which have abstracts)

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 via NHS Evidence
Medline via OvidSP

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

The searchable archive (2000 - 2007) of the The National Research Register which was a public database of ongoing and recently completed research projects funded by, or of interest to, the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS).

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

The NDLTD provides free access to international electronic theses and dissertations with multidisciplinary subject coverage from a wide range of member institutions.

Open Grey (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe)

A multidisciplinary database providing open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe covering science, technology, biomedical sciences, economics, social sciences and humanities.

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.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database

Includes 2.7 million searchable citations to dissertation and theses from around the world from 1861 to the present day together with 1.2 million full text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works. Access is via subscription.

PsycINFO via NHS Evidence
PsycINFO via OvidSP

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.

Research Register for Social Care

A database of current and completed social care research that has been subject to independent ethical and scientific review. It covers social care research in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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.

TILT (Today I learnt that)

A free shared learning tool aimed at capturing and sharing clinical learning. As well as providing a facility to learn from others, TILT is also is a way of recording personal learning (and reflections) which can form part of a portfolio of education suitable for use in appraisal.

Toxnet

A multiple set of databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases.

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.

Web of Knowledge

The Web of Knowledge is a premier research platform for information in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. It provides a single point of access and cross database searching capability for the Web of Science & a range of other databases offered by Thomson ISI.

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.

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.

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.

Medical Matrix

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

Medicines Information (NICE)

An online service that brings together a wide range of medicines and prescribing information for healthcare professionals involved or interested in commissioning, managing, prescribing, dispensing and administering drugs.

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.

Medscape Reference

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

National Electronic Library for Medicines (NeLM)

In April 2013 resources previously available through the NeLM became available via NICE Evidence Search only under Midicines Information.

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.

Social Care Institute for Excellence

A portal to the UK's largest collection of information on social work and social care.

The Virtual Library

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

Yahoo Health Directory

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.

Healthwise

A search engine designed to quickly find trusted information about healthcare issues and local NHS, Council and voluntary group services. Healthwise uses Google but only to search sites that doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals in the North West of England have recommended people visit.

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.

Medpedia

Similar to Wikipedia except it keeps tighter editorial control than Wikipedia plus contributors are required to be medically qualified or have a PhD in a biomedical field.

NHS Evidence Search

A one-stop single search interface for a large number of sources, (many of which are accredited) including clinical trails databases, guidelines, Government literature, health organisations, NICE Pathways, public health sources, charities and Royal societies and colleges.

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

This is a digitised version of the 20th edition, 1918.

Hardin MD Medical Pictures/Disease Pictures

Searchable list of images provides by the University of Iowa Library.

HEAL

Digital materials for health sciences education, including audio and consumer health materials. Requires free registration.

Health on the Net Media Gallery

A media gallery containing over 6,800 images. Is indexed by body part and includes images of medical conditions and procedures.

HON Medical Images and Video Repository

Repository of over 6'800 medical images and videos, pertaining to 1,700 topics and themes

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.

NHS Evidence Images

A freely available collection of high quality medical images.

NHS Photo Library

Official NHS stock photos which can be used for presentations and official NHS publications. Access is restricted to authorised NHS users, registration requires an NHS email account.

PEIR - (Pathology Education Instructional Resource)Digital Library

A searchable database of pathology images. Allows limited nonprofit, educational use of the images. Click on the "copyright agreement" link o the website for restrictions.

Public Health Image Library (PHIL)

Multimedia and images relating to public health, including infectious organisms, environmental health, natural disasters.

SpringerImages

Large database of medical, life science and public health images and moving images.

Wellcome Images

Images on this site are freely available for download for personal, academic teaching or study use, under one of two Creative Commons licences. Charges may apply for new photography, larger electronic files or prints.

More image resources

A comprehensive list of medical image resources compiled bt the University of British Columbia.

Health news

BBC Health News

Behind the Headlines

British Nursing News Online

Google Health News Search

Health news reviews

The following sites provide independent reviews of health related stories making the newspapers and news websites.

NHS Choices Behind the Headlines (UK)

Health News Reviews (USA)

Media Doctor (Australian).

Health statistics

OHE Health Statistics and information (OHESI)

One-stop source for health statistics and data on population and health trends in the UK, and on the changing finances and structure of the NHS. Data are collected and consolidated from a range of public and private sources, including some international data for comparisons

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.

Department of Health 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.

Office for National Statistics

Official UK statistics site.

WHO World Health Statistics Reports

WHO's annual World Health Statistics reports present the most recent health statistics for the WHO Member States.

UK Data Archive

The UK's largest collection of digital social and economic research data.

Global Health Observatory (GHO)

WHO's portal providing access to data and analyses for monitoring the global health situation.

StatSoft Electronic Statistics Glossary

Statistics Glossary (STEPS)

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.

UHSM Academy 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 speciality.

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.

CAPHIS

Consumer and Patient Health Information CAPHIS), Top 100 health websites you can trust.

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.

MEDLINEplus

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

NHS Evidence allows everyone working in health and social care to access a wide range of health information to help them deliver quality patient care. Searches can be refined to filter for patient information.

NICE Guidence for Patients and the Public

A database produced by the NHS National Institute of Clinical Excellence. Different versions of NICE publications are availble tailored to the public, carers and patients.

Patient UK

Comprehensive health information as provided by GPs and nurses to patients during consultation. Aims to provide good quality information about health and disease to mainly non-medical people and in the UK.

PatientsLikeMe

Social networking site where online communities of patients share their experiences with each other.

Prodigy - Information for Patients

Prodigy 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.

Youthhealthtalk

A website about young people’s real life experiences of health and lifestyle containing medical facts in relation to real people and real lives. You can watch, listen and read young people talking about their experiences and join in the forums.

Wrong Diagnosis

An independent, objective source of factual, mainstream health information for both consumers and health professionals. Aims to encourage consumers to be informed and interested in managing their health, and to know what questions to ask their doctors to help ensure they are getting the best healthcare possible.

Copyright

Provides information on the terms and conditions of the copyright licence covering NHS England.

Strategic Health Authority Library Leads (SHALL)

Provides detailed information about the Copyright Licencing Agreement (CLA) Licence for the NHS in England.

University of Manchester copyright information

Information provided by the Manchester University for academic staff and students.

Literature searching

Cochrane Library - an intoduction

A free online tutorial to the Cochrane Library provided by Wiley.

Cochrane Library - searching and using MESH

Part two of the above online tutorial.

Systematic Reviews: CRDs guidance for undertaking reviews in health care

The 3rd edition of the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) guide provides comprehensive information on the whole process of undertaking different types of systematic reviews. Very useful chapters on defining the review question, identifying the evidence and database searching.

Finding studies for systematic reviews: a resource list for researchers

A CRD list of suggested key sources to search to identify studies for inclusion in systematic reviews. The choice of databases will depend upon the topic of the systematic review and the resources that are available to the review project team.

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

Although primarily a guide for the preparation of Cochrane interventional reviews, many of the chapters can also be used for general literature searching. Chapter 6 (Searching for studies) includes useful sections on sources to search, how to search and design a search strategy and using search filters.

The Literature Search Process: Guidance for NHS Researchers

A very useful guide developed by South Central Healthcare Librarians on planning a literature search, identifying key sources of information, guidance in carrying out an effective literature search and documenting the search process.

Guide to sources of information

A guide of free and other useful electronic resources to consider using when carrying out a literature search. Developed by South Central Healthcare Librarians.

The InterTASC Information Specialists' Sub-Group Search Filter Resource

A filter resource resulting from a collaborative venture to identify, assess and test search filters designed to retrieve research by study design. The Search Filters Resource aims to provide easy access to published and unpublished search filters.

BMJ Clinical Evidence search filters

A collection of search strategies used for BMJ Clinical Evidence to identify all major study types.

SIGN search filters

Search filter list devised by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) for use in Medline, Embase and CINAHL and other more specialised databases.

PubMed Search Strategies blog

A blog created to share PubMed search strategies. Search strategies posted are not perfect but are posted in the hope that others will benefit from the work already put into their creation and/or will offer suggestions for improvements.

PubMed search filters

List of search filters to identify systematic reviews, clinical prediction guides, diagnosis, prognosis, aetiology and therapy studies.

ISSG search filters

A search filter resource is hosted on behalf of the InterTASC Information Specialists' Sub-Group by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination.

Cochrane Review Groups

A list of links to all the Cochrane review groups, many of which indicate the resources and search strategies used to identify relevant resources.

Methodological filters for GPs

A useful list of search filters provided by gp-training.net - an education and training resource for GPs.

BestBETs search strategies

Provides information and guidance on how and when to use search filters.

Cochrane literature searching resources.

A useful list of books and journal articles all about literature searching.

Critical appraisal and Evidence based practice

Health Knowledge: Finding and Appraising the Evidence

Detailed e-learning modules taking you through the whole process of identifying and critically appraising the evidence.

Centre for Health Evidence : How to Use an Article About Therapy or Prevention

Checklist of questions to ask when appraising papers with additional detailed information on exactly what to consider when answering each question.

Delfini EBM Resources

A major resource providing evidence-based practice resources for health care decision-makers. Includes many links to critical appraisal guides, tutorials and resources

Delfini Critical Appraisal Tools

Comprehensive range of critical appraisal tools relating to all aspects of the critical appraisal and evidence based medicine

Consort Statement

The CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) Statement is intended to improve the reporting of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), but is also a useful tool to critically appraise RCTs.

AGREE: Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation

The new international tool for the assessment of the quality practice guidelines.

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)

Established tools for appraising RCTs, Systematic reviews, Cohort studies, Economic evaluation studies, Case control studies, Diagnostic test studies and Qualitative research studies.

PRISMA Statement

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) provides a 27 point checklist relating to the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

BestBETS Critical Appraisal Worksheets

A list of critical appraisal checklists covering a whole range of study types

JAMA Users' Guides

Detailed critical appraisal checklists covering most study types. NHS Athens account required.

Methods for the development of NICE public health guidance (2009)

Comprehensive information on all aspects of appraising public health research.

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

A large database of EBM information resources and guides.

The ‘What is?’ series

Useful handouts on critical appraisal, confidence intervals, systematic reviews, meta-analyses etc.

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

Online version of popular guide written by Trisha Greenhalgh covering all aspects of the appraisal process. Requires an NHS Athens login.

GRADE Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 2011 series list of articles on grading the quality of evidence.

The 2011 JCE series provides a 20-part guide for systematic review and health technology assessment authors, guideline panelists and methodologists on how to apply the GRADE methodology framework in more detail. Also includes links to the 6-part BMJ series from 2008.

The James Lind Library

Dedicated to patients and professionals who have contributed evidence about the effects of treatments in health care and to help people understand fair tests of treatments. Includes a link to the full text of the book Testing Treatments: better research for better healthcare.

Bandlier Learning Zone

Features a collection of basic guides that clearly explain all aspects of critical appraisal, evidence based medicine and statistcs

Bandolier Glossary

Provides definitions for the jargon words often used in medicine and the numbers and statistics used to describe it. The glossary includes terms used in epidemiology, in clinical trials, in diagnosis, in statistics, and in health economics

JAMA Evidence Glossary

A detailed glossary containing words relating to critical appraisal and all aspects of evidence based practice.

BestBETS Critical Appraisal Database

A database of critically appraised papers covering all study types.

OT CATS (Occupational Therapy Critically Appraised Topics) Database

A database of topics providing answers to clinical questions. Each CAT includes search strategies used, a short summary of the evidence and a critical appraisal.

Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

A database of critically appraised papers on paediatric critical care.

Centre for Reviews and Dissemmination (CRD) Databases

The CRD databases provide access to over 20,000 quality assessed systematic reviews, 13,000 economic evaluations and 12,000 summaries of completed and ongoing health technology assessments.

Behind the Headlines

Produced by NHS Choices this website provides critically appraised summaries of current research topics in the news.

Research at UHSM

Research and Development Directorate

Webpage of the UHSM Research and Development Directorate

UHSM controlled clinical trials

Source: International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register

UHSM clinical trials - open

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov

UHSM clinical trials - closed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov

UHSM Staff Pubications

Source: PubMed

Research guides and resources

Advanced qualitative research for nursing.

Electronic book - UHSM Athens required. Joanna Latimer, Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Current Nursing

A web portal providing directories, quizes, articles updated feeds and open access articles relating to all aspects of nursing, including nursing research.

Glossary of terms used in clinical research

Source: Wikipedia

Quantitative research methods

A glossary of terms produced by Liverpool University.

Glossary of clinical trials terms

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov

Glossary of terms in health research

Source: A practical guide for health researchers. WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean; 2004 p. 234.

University of Manchester Copyright Information

Information for academic staff and students provided by Manchester University. For information about copyright in the NHS, click here.

Impact factor information

Excellent guide to impact factors looking at calculations, measures, validity, criticisms, use etc. Source: Wikipedia.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Offical ranking of journal impact factors published by Thomson Reuters. Access is available to institutions (e.g. Manchester University) that subscribe to the ISI Web of Knowledge.

Medical Journal Impact factors

Website listing impact factor data collected independently by the website author, as reported in the various journals.

MedBio World

Lists over 12,000 journals in various disciplines, including 4,846 journals ranked by Thomson Scientifics' Journal Citation Reports™ (JCR). This central, comprehensive source helps identify the leading journals containing the key research you seek.

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.

Evaluating information tutorial

Excellent interative tutorial produced by Leeds University.

Evaluating online information video

Informative video produced by Cardiff University featuring useful tips and advice on using the web for academic work.

Internet Medic

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

CAPHIS

Consumer and Patient Health Information CAPHIS). Guides on how to evaluate print and online resources.

Open University - iKnow

iKnow is all about information and knowledge at work. The site offers a variety of free resources aimed at helping you to find and manage information effectively at work, including the evaluation and measuring the quality of information.

QuackWatch

A site dedicated to reporting medical fraud and quackery.

Referencing tools

Neil's Toolbox

Referencing@Portsmouth

The above are 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.

The following three sites are advanced referencing management tools. Unlike other similar tools such as Reference Manager and EndNote however, they are all feely available to downoad from the internet.

Zotero

Mendeley

BiblioExpress