Start your search for knowledge!
The Navigator will help you find your way through the different types of information available, and the different means of locating it.
For some resources, youâll need an NHS OpenAthens account for access.
What sort of information are you looking for:
Clinical decision support or point of care tools are resources that can be used to get quick answers for patient care, so are easy to use and contain filtered information. These tools include details of the evidence used, with citations back to the original research studies, systematic reviews, or guidelines. DynaMed provides evidence-graded treatment recommendations as well as diagnostic and other information for common as well as rare conditions. It also offers a drug interactions checker, patient information leaflets and clinical calculators. If the book you require is on loan you can use the reservation facility to request a copy. Otherwise, take a note of the shelfmark (e.g. WY 100 BAL) or special location (e.g. Leadership Zone), and find the book on the shelves. You can either read the book online, or download it to a mobile device for up to 14 days. Visit our guide for more details. If you are looking for a specific book and it is not available, you can request that we order a copy from elsewhere. There is no charge for this service. Use the âArticleâ tab on Resource Finder. Or try searching for the journal title on 'Journals A-Z' (NHS OpenAthens login required), which includes all local and nationally available journals - https://publications.ebsco.com/?custId=ns010435&groupId=main&profileId=pfui Did you find the journal with the year(s) that you need? This is sometimes also known as âforward citation searchingâ, and there are couple of resources that can be used. Google Scholar A small number of articles are retracted after publication, and if you want to be sure you are not referencing one by mistake, it is worth doing a search for retracted publications. Below are a couple of suggested sources for checking. Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. If youâre searching Medline using the NHS Healthcare Databases, this is an example strategy that can be copied and pasted into the search box: retracted publication.pt Once the search is complete, carry out a search for your paper (e.g. by doing a title search), and then combine the searches together.  Excepta Medica (EMBASE) covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health. It is particularly strong on pharmaceutical information, and has an emphasis on European literature. If youâre searching EMBASE using the NHS Healthcare Databases, this is an example strategy that can be copied and pasted into the search box: retracted article.sh Once the search is complete, carry out a search for your paper (e.g. by doing a title search), and then combine the searches together. If youâre searching EMBASE using the OvidSP native interface, this is an example strategy that can be copied and pasted into the search box: retracted article.sh Once the search is complete, carry out a search for your paper (e.g. by doing a title search), and then combine the searches together. For more information about retracted articles, visit the  North West Ambulance Service Library and Knowledge Service guide. To locate articles on a specific subject, the best way is to carry out a search in a journal indexing database, or ask a librarian to do this for you. These databases may cover other types of material (e.g. book chapters, dissertations etc.) but their main focus is journal articles. What broad area is your search in? These key journal article databases cover nursing and midwifery topics CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers all aspects of nursing, midwifery and allied health subjects, and health education. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS British Nursing Index (BNI) supports the education, research, practice and development of UK nurses, midwives, health visitors, and related staff, and covers British nursing and midwifery journals. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS MCare offers international coverage of 3,700 nursing and allied health journals back to 1995. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS These key journal article databases may be helpful for public health topics Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers all aspects of nursing, midwifery and allied health subjects, and health education. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Excepta Medica (EMBASE) covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health. It is particularly strong on pharmaceutical information, and has an emphasis on European literature. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS The Campbell Collaboration contains details of a small number of systematic reviews produced in the fields of education, crime and justice and social welfare The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre) produces two databases on the effectiveness of health promotion interventions. These key journal article databases may be helpful for allied health topics CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers all aspects of nursing, midwifery and allied health subjects, and health education. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED) covers alternatives to conventional medicine, as well as allied health topics like physiotherapy and speech therapy. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database and provides details or randomised controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy. Most RCTs have been rated for quality to discriminate between trials which are likely to be valid and interpretable and those which are not. OTseeker contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) relevant to occupational therapy. From 2016, OTseeker is less comprehensive and other resources should also be searched. RCTs up to around 2013 have been critically appraised and rated to assist you to evaluate their validity and interpretability. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) is produced by the US Institute of Education, and covers a number of journals, and non-journal material, in all fields of education. Download our guide to ERIC (Courtesy of Shrewsbury and Telford Health Libraries) These key journal article databases may be helpful for mental health topics PsycINFO provides extensive international coverage of psychology and allied fields such as psychiatry. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS These key journal article databases may be helpful for social care topics Social Care Online cover UK social care information, including government and social policy, mental health care, families, children and young people, and social work. These key journal article databases may be helpful for health services management topics HMIC includes information from the Department of Healthâs Library and Information Service, and the Kingâs Fund Information and Library Service. As well as journal articles, HMIC also includes official publications and grey literature. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS NICE Evidence can be searches using a Guidance filter, to filter to material such as NICE guidance, Clinical Knowledge Summaries and SIGN guidance. You can also filter further for guidelines from specific organisations using the âSourcesâ filter. Click the link below, enter your search terms and run the search which will be filtered to Guidance resources. Search the TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) database and use the âGuidelinesâ limit to filter the results (you can also filter for just UK guidelines if necessary). if youâre not using an NHS PC, youâll need to register (for free) and login to use the filter. Download our guide to the TRIP Database | Visit the TRIP Database help page The Royal Marsden Manual provides clinical procedure guidelines for over 350 nursing procedures, along with evidence-graded references. MAH Complete is the premium health journal collection from the Mark Allen Group. MAH Complete covers the whole health care spectrum including nursing, midwifery, medicine, allied health professions and health economics. The best single place to look for unpublished or ongoing systematic reviews and meta-analyses is the PROSPERO database. PROSPERO is an international prospective register of systematic reviews, and authors of reviews are encouraged to register their review. A systematic review is a review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyse and summarise the results of the included studies. Meta-analysis refers to the use of statistical techniques in a systematic review to integrate the results of included studies [from the PRISMA website] Are you looking for published or unpublished/ongoing reviews? The best single place to look for unpublished or ongoing systematic reviews and meta-analyses is the PROSPERO database. PROSPERO is an international prospective register of systematic reviews, and authors of reviews are encouraged to register their review. A Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) is one in which participants are randomly assigned to two or more groups. One group (the experimental group) receives the intervention that is being tested and another (the comparison or control group) receives an alternative treatment or placebo. RCTs are considered a good source of evidence for questions on treatments and diagnosis. Are you looking for published or unpublished/ongoing trials? These are some good places to look for unpublished or ongoing Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) ClinicalTrials.gov in an international registry and summary results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies. The ISRCTN registry is a primary clinical trial registry recognised by WHO and ICMJE that accepts all clinical research studies and provides a unique identification number necessary for publication. Some none-RCTs are included. Observational studies can include cohort studies and case control studies. Where there are no RCTs available (perhaps because it is not appropriate to conduct one) they may be the best evidence available. Observational studies can help answer questions on prognosis, etiology and harms. These are some good places to look for published observational studies. Once youâve found one, you could use the CASP Cohort Study Checklist or CASP Case Control Checklist to critically appraise it if it is one of these two types of study. Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. Observational studies can be retrieved by performing a subject search as normal, and then performing the following search (paste it into the search box) which is then combined with your subject search: COMPARATIVE STUDIES/ OR EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES/ OR TIME FACTORS/ OR (chang*).ti,ab OR (evaluat*).ti,ab OR (reviewed).ti,ab OR (prospective*).ti,ab OR (retrospective*).ti,ab OR (baseline).ti,ab OR (cohort).ti,ab OR (âcase seriesâ).ti,ab OR (consecutive*).ti,ab OR (compare*).ti,ab OR (compara*).ti,ab This is a very âsensitiveâ search, so will pick up a lot of references to studies that are not observational, but it should ensure you get all the observational studies available. More information on this filter is available in this article. Excepta Medica (EMBASE) covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health. It is particularly strong on pharmaceutical information, and has an emphasis on European literature. Observational studies can be retrieved by performing a subject search as normal, and then performing the following search (paste it into the search box) which is then combined with your subject search: CONTROLLED STUDY/ OR TREATMENT OUTCOME/ OR MAJOR CLINICAL STUDY/ OR (chang*).ti,ab OR (evaluat*).ti,ab OR (reviewed).ti,ab OR (compare*).ti,ab OR (compara*).ti,ab This is a very âsensitiveâ search, so will pick up a lot of references to studies that are not observational, but it should ensure you get all the observational studies available. More information on this filter is available in this article. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Qualitative research can help to understand the human experience of health and illness, and is an important part of evidence-based healthcare. Qualitative research can use various methods, such as grounded theory, phenomenology, or focus groups. These are some good places to look for articles that use qualitative research methodologies. Once youâve found one, you could use the CASP Qualitative Research Checklist to critically appraise it. Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. If youâre searching Medline using the NHS Healthcare Databases, this is an example strategy that can be copied and pasted into the search box: exp âQUALITATIVE RESEARCHâ/ OR qualitative.ti,ab OR interview*.ti,ab OR experience*.ti,ab Once the search is complete, carry out a search for your topic of interest, and then combine the searches together. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS These are some good places to look for case reports Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. Case reports can be found by filtering your search to Article Type > Document Type > Case Reports Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Excepta Medica (EMBASE) covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health. It is particularly strong on pharmaceutical information, and has an emphasis on European literature. Case reports can be found by using the thesaurus term âcase reportsâ and combining this with your search Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS BMJ Case Reports contains over 11,000 articles. It is indexed in Medline, but is worth searching separately. Staff of Kettering General Hospital Foundation Trust can submit case reports to BMJ Case Reports for FREE using our Fellowship number. Contact us to obtain the fellowship number. These are some good places to look for dissertations The ProQuest Hospital Collection contains over 30,000 nursing dissertations in full-text. DART Europe E-Thesis Portal contains details of over 700,000 open access research theses from universities in 28 European countries. The British Libraryâs EThOS service contains details of over 400,000 UK doctoral theses. Some of these have links to full-text. The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations is an international database of theses and dissertations, containing over 1 million records. Grey literature generally means material that is either unpublished or has been published in non-commercial form, and can include government reports, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, and research reports. Resources for locating Dissertations and Theses are available separately. These are some good places to look for grey literature. Once youâve found some literature, you could use the AACODS Checklist to critically appraise it (unless there is a more appropriate CASP checklist). HMIC is good source for UK health related grey literature. HMIC includes information from the Department of Healthâs Library and Information Service, and the Kingâs Fund Information and Library Service. As well as official publications and grey literature, HMIC also indexes journal articles. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS OAIster contains more than 30 million records of open access grey literature resources. Open Grey covers a variety of European grey literature including conference papers, research reports and dissertations. Pre-appraised literature has been reviewed for methodological quality, and finding an appraised version of an article can save time when doing a critical appraisal. These are some useful resources for locating pre-appraised literature. These journals take articles from elsewhere, summarise them and provide expert commentary. PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database and provides details or randomised controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy. Most RCTs have been rated for quality to discriminate between trials which are likely to be valid and interpretable and those which are not. OTseeker contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) relevant to occupational therapy. From 2016, OTseeker is less comprehensive and other resources should also be searched. RCTs up to around 2013 have been critically appraised and rated to assist you to evaluate their validity and interpretability. Search the TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) database and use the âControlled Trialsâ limit to filter the results. If youâre not using an NHS PC, youâll need to register (for free) and login to use the filter. TRIP uses the RobotReviewer system to give an indication as to whether a controlled trial has a low estimated level of bias or a high/unclear estimated level of bias, and this is displayed below each reference. Clicking the link below the result gives some more information about the score. Download our guide to the TRIP Database | Visit the TRIP Database help page The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) is provided by the NIHR Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and contains over 35,000 quality assessments of systematic reviews. It covers the period up to the end of 2014, and is no longer being updated. There is also access via DARE to the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (updated until 2014), and the Health Technology Assessment database (updated until March 2018) by selecting them from the list of resources to search. These are some good places to look for economic evaluations. Once youâve found an economic evaluation, you could use the CASP Economic Evaluation Checklist to critically appraise it. The CEA (Cost Effectiveness Analysis) Registry is a collection of over 5,500 articles containing cost-utility analyses. The NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) contains details of articles containing economic evaluations of healthcare interventions. It covers the period up to the end of 2014, and is no longer being updated. It can be searched via the NIHR Centre for Reviews and Dissemination by selecting it from the list of resources to search. Medline is a very comprehensive database, with coverage of all areas of medicine, including nursing, allied health, public health and mental health. It contains over 23 million references, from over 5,600 scholarly journals. Economic evaluations can be found by using a search strategy such as this one for Medline: (ec).fs OR (cost).ti OR exp *âHEALTH CARE COSTSâ/ OR exp *âCOSTS AND COST ANALYSISâ/ Copy and paste this into the search box and run the search, then carry out your subject search and combine the two. More strategies can be found on the McMaster University website but they will need to be adapted for the NHS databases. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS Excepta Medica (EMBASE) covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health. It is particularly strong on pharmaceutical information, and has an emphasis on European literature. Economic evaluations can be found by using a search strategy such as this one for EMBASE: exp *âCOST EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSISâ/ OR exp *âECONOMIC EVALUATIONâ/ OR (cost).ti OR (economic).ti,ab Copy and paste this into the search box and run the search, then carry out your subject search and combine the two. More strategies can be found on the McMaster University website but they will need to be adapted for the NHS databases. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS These are some good places to look for medicines information. For more detailed information and advice on medicines use, you could try contacting KGH Medicines Information on 01536 493788 or email [email protected].  The BNF provides authoritative and practical information on the selection and clinical use of medicines. It can be accessed electronically via NICE Evidence. There is also a Mobile app. Like the BNF, this can be accessed electronically via NICE Evidence and the mobile app. Gives access to Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) and Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) for most UK-licensed products. SPCs are useful for checking the licensed indications, doses, cautions, contraindications, adverse affects and monitoring requirements of a medicine. DynaMed includes a drug interactions database with content from IBM MicromedexÂŽ. This allows you to enter a patientâs medications (including herbal remedies where appropriate) to check for any interactions and their seriousness. NICE Evidence has a filter for Prescribing and Technical Information that searches sources such as the BNF, BNFc, eMC, MHRA and the Specialist Pharmacy Service simultaneously. Click the link below and then enter your search terms and run the search which will be filtered to Prescribing and Technical Information resources. Excepta Medica (EMBASE) indexes journal literature, and although it covers all aspects of medicine, nursing, allied health, health policy, and public health, it is particularly strong on pharmaceutical literature. When using thesaurus searching for a specific drug, you can apply subheadings that offer choices of different routes of drug administration as well as âadverse drug reactionâ, âdrug comparisonâ and âdrug dosageâ. Download our guide to Searching Healthcare Databases via HDAS The Medicines Information Service at Kettering general Hospital may be able to provide further information and advice on medicines use, and has access to additional medicines information resources. For more information contact: Medicines Information on 01536 493788 or email [email protected].  Clinical decision support?
DynaMed
Access DynaMed (if accessing off-site, a personal account created onsite, or an NHS OpenAthens account is required)
BMJ Best Practice
BMJ Best Practice provides evidence-graded treatment recommendations as well as diagnostic and other information for many conditions. It also offers a prescribing information and clinical calculators.
Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures
The Royal Marsden Manual provides clinical procedure guidelines for over 350 nursing procedures, along with evidence-graded references.
Books?
No, I want to search for books by subject
Visit the KGH Catalogue and carry out a Keyword Search. For best results, use just a few words.
E-Books?
Our e-books can be found in our ProQuest Ebook Central collection. To search and access our e-books, an NHS OpenAthens account from us is required.
Use the Request a Book form to order a copy
Journal Articles?
Yes, I have the details and I want a copy of the paper
No, full-text is not available
Use the Article Request form to order a copy
Yes, I have the details and I want to see who has cited the paper
 is a good place to find out who has cited a particular paper. Carry out a search for the paper, and the results list should display the number of citations (âCited byâ). Clicking the link will then display the references. Yes, I have the details and I want to check the paper has not been retracted
Medline
Embase
No, I need to search for journal articles
Nursing or Midwifery
CINAHL
British Nursing Index (BNI)
EMCare
Public Health
Medline
CINAHL
EMBASE
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens account using the HDAS interface (recommended)
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens using the OvidSP interface
Campbell Collaboration (C2)
EPPI Centre
Allied health
CINAHL
Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED)
PEDro (physiotherapy)
OTseeker (occupational therapy)
ERIC (education)
Mental health
PsycINFO
Medline
Social care
Social Care Online
Health Services management
HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium)
No, I'd like a librarian to do a search for me
Clinical Practice Guidelines?
NICE Evidence
Trip Database
Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures
Mark Allen Journals (MAH)
Clinical Pathways?
Unpublished reviews
Systematic Reviews or Meta-Analyses?
Unpublished reviews
Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs)?
Unpublished or ongoing RCT's
ClinicalTrials.gov
International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial registry (ISRCTN registry)
Observational Studies?
Medline
Embase
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens account using the HDAS interface (recommended)
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens using the OvidSP interface
Qualitative Research?
Medline
Case Reports?
Medline
EMBASE
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens account using the HDAS interface (recommended)
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens using the OvidSP interface
BMJ Case Reports
Publishing a case report in BMJ Case Reports
Dissertations and Theses?
ProQuest Hospital Collection nursing dissertations
DART Europe E-Thesis Portal
EThOS
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
Grey literature?
HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium)
OAIster Database
Open Grey (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe)
Pre-appraised evidence?
Journals of secondary publication / Abstraction journals (journal articles)
PEDro (RCTs in physiotherapy)
OTseeker (RCTs in occupational therapy)
TRIP Database (RCTs)
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (systematic reviews)
Economic evaluations?
CEA Registry
NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED)
Medline
EMBASE
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens account using the HDAS interface (recommended)
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens using the OvidSP interface
Medicines Information?
British National Formulary (BNF)
BNF for Children (BNFc)
electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC)
DynaMed drug interactions database
NICE Evidence
EMBASE
EMBASE has much more detailed indexing of drug-related articles than Medline.
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens account using the HDAS interface (recommended)
Access EMBASE via NHS OpenAthens using the OvidSP interface
Medicine Information Service
More guidance is available in The Literature Search Process: Guidance for NHS Researchers. This document has been developed by health librarians in Thames Valley, Wessex and South NHS regions to support healthcare researchers in carrying out effective literature searches according to an agreed set of recommendations.
