Evidence sources: an A-Z summary

• ACP Journal Club Value-added abstracts to research and systematic review journal articles that are selected according to explicit criteria from over 100 major peer-reviewed medical journals. Note: you can specify search by Therapy, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Aetiology, etc. Note: you will need an RMH Library number to access.)

• ACP Pier (StatRef): via Athens logon. An evidence-based point-of-care facility.

• Australian Drug Information The Australian Drug Information Network (ADIN) provides a central point of access to quality Internet-based alcohol and drug information provided by prominent organisations in Australia and Internationally. ADIN is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing as part of the National Illicit Drug Strategy and managed by the Australian Drug Foundation.

• Australian Medicines Handbook : via Athens logon. The philosophy of the AMH is to use the best available evidence to support prescribing and dispensing recommendations. Its purpose is to provide a readily accessible, concise, up-to-date source of independent drug information to facilitate effective, rational, safe and economical prescribing and dispensing; secondly, to provide an educational tool for practitioners and students.

• Bandolier - a monthly evidence-based electronic newsletter from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (UK).

• BestBETs - a collection of CATs on questions asked in the emergency room setting (and often seen in the primary care office). Note: use 'Clinical Query and Answers' in the Advanced search facility. Critically appraised results are marked with a CA symbol).

• BMJ Best Practice: evidence-based point-of-care facility: access via Athens logon.

• British National Formulary The BNF includes key information on the selection, prescribing, dispensing and administration of medicines. Medicines generally prescribed in the UK are covered and those considered less suitable for prescribing are clearly identified. Little or no information is included on medicines promoted for purchase by the public.

• Centre for Clinical Effectiveness (Southern Health): includes locally produced evidence summaries.

• Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health Most of the reviews submitted by the Centre are published through the Cochrane Collaboration for DAN (Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis) group - but is also involved in systematic reviews in a number of other areas.

• Clinical Evidence is integrated and available via BMJ Best Practice or via this link for training and other resources only. It is an updated compendium of evidence on the effects of clinical interventions. It summarizes the best available evidence and the current state of knowledge, including knowns and unknowns, based on thorough searches. It categorizes interventions as beneficial, likely beneficial, no known benefit, harmful, etc. It covers more than 200 conditions and more than 350 clinical questions. Clinical questions relevant to clinicians are posed and then the literature is reviewed for the best evidence. CE is published by the BMJ.

• ClinicaTrial.gov: US clinical trials database

• Cochrane library A collection of four evidence-based, full-text databases:

  • The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness: Critical appraisals of systematic reviews published elsewhere. Prepared by reviewers at the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York, England.

  • The Cochrane Controlled Trials Register: The largest register of controlled trials in the world, and including hand-searched information from unpublished reports and conference proceedings as well as records from MEDLINE, EMBASE and other bibliographic databases.

  • NHS Economic Evaluation Database: Assessments of economic evaluations of health care interventions

  • Health Technology Assessment reports and other databases.

• Cochrane (Mental Health) This website has been designed to try to help people making decisions about health care in the aftermath of natural disasters and other emergencies. The topics have been identified as priorities by people in affected regions, and relate to treatments that might be used or available. Where possible, a summary has been prepared, based on one or more Cochrane reviews.

• CRD The (NHS) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination produces: Effective Health Care bulletins, based on a series of systematic reviews and synthesis of research on clinical and cost-effectiveness; Effectiveness Matters bulletins, summarising the results of important systematic reviews of research on specific clinical topics; Systematic Reviews of Research Evidence; and CRD reports.

• DUETs Database of Uncertainties of the effects of Treatments gives priority to identifying and publishing unanswered questions about the effects of treatments which have been asked by patients and clinicians, while also noting therapeutic uncertainties identified through systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, and other formal mechanisms.

• EBM Guidelines: Evidence-Based Medicine a concise and easy-to-use collection of clinical guidelines for primary care combined with the best available evidence. Continuously updated EBM Guidelines follows the latest developments in clinical medicine and brings evidence into practice.

• EBM Online (BMJ) for Primary Care and Internal Medicine.

• EBDM Journal Club evidence summaries/CATs courtesy of a collaboration between the Royal North Shore Hospital (Sydney) and University of NSW.

• Electronic Medicines Compendium (UK) provides electronic Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) and Patient Information Leaflets (PILs). It provides information on thousands of licensed medicines available in the UK.
  The eMC is continuously updated with new and revised SPC and PIL information which, after approval by the licensing authorities, is submitted directly by pharmaceutical companies.

• Evidence Australasia (searches guidelines sites)

• Evidence-Base On-Call An NHS sponsored collection of browsable CATs (critically appraised topics) and evidence summaries.

• Evidence Direct evidence summaries (locally-generated ESs)

• Evidence Updates (BMJ) provides a cumulative, searchable database of recent journal article citations, with links to their abstracts, and ratings of their relevance and importance by practicing physicians.

• GoPubmed: a version of PubMed that combines MeSH searching with Gene Ontology searching:

• HealthInsite an Australian Government initiative, funded by the Department of Health and Ageing, which aims to improve the health of Australians by providing easy access to quality information about human health.

• Image Pathways (you will need to register on the site)

• JBI Includes Systematic Reviews, Best Practice Information Sheets, and the CIS (Clinical Information Service) database.

• James Lind Library Helps understand fair tests of treatments in health care by illustrating how fair tests have developed over the centuries. The Library is dedicated to patients and professionals who have contributed evidence about the effects of treatments in health care.

• JBI Connect is an online web-based facility that provides users with resources and tools to search, appraise, summarise, embed, utilise and evaluate evidence-based information. JBI COnNECT is designed to meet the needs of service providers, health professionals and consumers with the skills and resources to enhance care by connecting the best available international evidence to the point-of-care.

• Lexi-Interact (Up-to-Date) provides information on the interactions between known medicines: Drug-to-Drug, Drug-to-Herb and Herb-to-Herb.

• Meditext: Australian health content via Informit. Click here (need RMH Library number)

• MD Consult includes over 80 journals and Clinics of North America and much more.

• Micromedex: need RMH Library number 
• MIMS: via Athens logon.  Incorporating data from MIMS abbreviated and full medicines information, product images and consumer medicines information, MIMS Online offers convenient access to essential information on over 4,500 prescription and non-prescription drugs.

• National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health one of seven centres established by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to develop guidance on the appropriate treatment and care of people with specific diseases and conditions within the NHS in England and Wales. Established in 2001, it is responsible for developing mental health guidelines, and is a partnership between the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Psychological Society.

• NLH Evidence Base An NHS unified search facility that searches evidence-based reviews, guidelines, and selected books and journals.

• NLH Mental Health section as above but covers Mental Health.

• National Library for Medicines (UK) was formerly known as DrugInfoZone) and provides timely and relevant information on medicines and support prescribing to the NHS at the point of care. It is part of the (UK) National Library for Health.

• National Prescribing Centre (NHS)

• National Prescribing Service is a medicines service agency for Australia's National Medicines Policy.

• NEED: NHS National Economic Evaluation Database

• Netting the Evidence a search engine developed by Andrew Booth (ScHARR)

• NHMRC Clinical Guidelines Portal The National Health & Medical Research Council guidelines facility. 

• Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health (Intute)

• NZGG (Mental Health) New Zealand Guidelines Group section on Mental Health guidelines.

• OT Cats (occupational therapy critically appraised topics)

• OT-Seeker a database that contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials relevant to occupational therapy. Trials have been critically appraised and rated to assist you to evaluate their validity and interpretability.

• Pedro has been developed to give rapid access to bibliographic details and abstracts of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy. Most trials on the database have been rated for quality to help you quickly discriminate between trials which are likely to be valid and interpretable and those which are not.

• Primary Answers is a collection of evidence summaries, practice guidelines, prediction rules and management algorithms from the high-quality sources for primary care listed below. Prediction rules are often interactive web calculators or downloadable Palm files.

• PubMed Clinical Queries Has built-in filters for the retrieval of studies by therapy, diagnosis, aetiology and prognosis. You can also choose a sensitive (broad) search or a specific (narrow) search. There is also a new (beta) PubMed search engine, called EBMSearch, which searches only the evidence-base (no details on how it works are yet available).

• SIGLE: Open Sigle - European grey literature database

• SumSearch - Simultaneously searches free-access sources: PubMed, NGC, DARE, etc. Results grouped by reviews, practice guidelines, systematic reviews, and research-based articles. You can focus your search by Therapy, Diagnosis, Prognosis and Aetiology, as well as other limits. Note: By clicking 'Check search strategy' the search maps against MeSH.

• Therapeutic Goods Administration The TGA carries out a range of assessment and monitoring activities to ensure therapeutic goods available in Australia are of an acceptable standard with the aim of ensuring that the Australian community has access, within a reasonable time, to therapeutic advances.

• Therapeutic Guidelines The aim of Therapeutic Guidelines Limited (TGL) is to provide clear, practical, authoritative and succinct therapeutic information for busy health practitioners, for the management of patients with specific conditions. The recommendations in Therapeutic Guidelines are based on the latest international literature, interpreted by some of Australia’s most eminent and respected experts, with each statement having been examined, subjected to challenge and discussed over a series of day long meetings. The finished texts represent the essence of current available evidence.

• Toxnet NLM databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases.

• TRIP is a collection of more than 75 databases, including Clinical Knowledge, Bandolier, Best Bets, etc. for access to evidence-based material as well as articles from peer-reviewed journals. Note: can filter by both methodological and clinical types.

• Trip Answers the Clinical Q & A repository of Trip Database, now references.

• Unbound Medline EBM Another interface to Medline with built-in EBM filters

• UpToDate The most current, extensive electronic textbook for medicine. Recommendations are based on the available evidence and the author's clinical experience. Continuously updated, not by any specific time schedule. Specifically designed to answer the clinical questions that arise in daily practice by summarizing published evidence and specific recommendations made for patient care. Note: 1. includes facility to narrow (focus) your search; a tree structure is also provided. Note 2: Only available onsite at RMH.

• World Health Organisation Clinical Trials database

For a listing of good Evidence-Based sites, see also: http://www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/ir/netting/net.html