Research Guides: Medicine: Databases

Tip Sheets

Requesting Articles Through Omni

If the database/library does not provide access to the articles that you are trying to retrieve, you can request full-text articles via the library’s Interlibrary Loans service:

Complete a request using the Blank Request Form.
You must select a Pickup Location, however PDFs will be sent electronically.
The turnaround time for receiving PDFs via email can be as quick as one or two business days, however, some articles may take longer if they are challenging to track down and receive.

Introduction

Bibliographic/citation databases contain bibliographic information (e.g., citation information and abstracts) for sources of literature. Conducting a search in most databases will look for your search terms within the bibliographic information, but not within full-text articles. The databases compared and listed below predominantly include bibliographic records of journal articles, but some also include types of "grey" or unpublished literature such as conference abstracts and preprints.

Note: access resources that are free to search (i.e., PubMed and Google Scholar) through the library website or library subject guides to ensure you see links to access full-text journal articles that are available through Queen's library subscriptions.

Database Comparison

	PubMed/ Ovid MEDLINE	Embase	PsycINFO	Cochrane Library	Web of Science	BIOSIS Previews
Years:	1946-present	1947-present	1806-present	Varies by database	1900-present	1926-present
Journals:	>6,500	> 8,500	>2,500	N/A	>33,000	>5,500
Records:	> 33 million	> 41 million	> 5 million	>1 million	>171 million	>18 million
Record Types:	Mostly journal articles	Journal articles, conference proceedings, preprints	Journal articles, book chapters, dissertations	High-quality clinical trials and systematic reviews	Journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings	Journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, patents
Subjects Included:	Biomedicine incl. allied health, biological and physical sciences	Biomedicine, pharmacology, toxicology, life sciences, and healthcare admin	Psychological literature incl. social, behavioral, and health sciences	Evidence for healthcare interventions and diagnostic assessment	Multidisciplinary incl. science, technology, humanities, and social sciences	Life sciences: biotechnology, neuroscience, pharmacology, public health, toxicology, and zoology
Subject Headings:	MeSH	Emtree	APA Thesaurus Terms	MeSH, but only for some records	N/A	N/A
QUL Platforms:	Ovid and PubMed	Ovid	Ovid and APA PsycNET	Ovid and Wiley	Web of Science	Web of Science
Notes:	No need to search both Ovid MEDLINE and PubMed			Aka Ovid EBM Reviews

Databases

Ovid MEDLINE
Medline (via Ovid) is a database of citations and abstracts in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, allied health and preclinical sciences. It contains more than 26 million references from over 6.500 worldwide journals.
PubMed
Medline (via PubMed) is a database of citations and abstracts in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, allied health and preclinical sciences. It contains more than 26 million references from over 6,500 worldwide journals.
EMBASE
Medical database covering a wide range of journals in the biomedical sciences. Particularly useful for locating drug information, as it indexes many drug journals not covered by MEDLINE. Embase contains more than 30 million references from over 8,500 worldwide journals.
PsycINFO
Provides abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work.
Cochrane Library (via Ovid)
The Cochrane Library (aka EBM Reviews on Ovid) is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
Cochrane Library (via Wiley interface)
The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
Web of Science
This large, multidisciplinary database provides access to bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references from scholarly journals and conference proceedings. A cited reference search enables you to find articles that cite a previously published work.
BIOSIS Previews
Life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more. Combines the content of both Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings), thus providing comprehensive coverage of nearly 5,500 life science journals as well as 1,500 items from international meetings, review articles, books, book chapters, patents, and software reviews.
Google Scholar
Use the Google Scholar search engine to locate articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles published on the "open" web. Google Scholar also enables you to find articles that cite a previously published work.
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