Research Guides: Health Sciences Research: Databases

Related Guides

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listed below predominantly include bibliographic records of journal articles, but some also include types of "grey" or unpublished literature such as conference abstracts and preprints.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	CINAHL	PsycINFO	Cochrane Library	Web of Science	BIOSIS Previews
Years:	1946- present	1947-present	1980- present	1806- present	Varies by database	1900- present	1926- present
Journals:	>6,500	> 8,500	>3,100	>2,500	N/A	>33,000	>5,500
Records:	> 38 million	> 45 million	~8 million	> 5 million	>1 million	>92 million	> 18 million
Record Types:	Mainly journal articles	Journal articles, conference abstracts/papers, preprints	Journal and magazine articles, dissertations, books	Journal articles, book chapters, dissertations	High-quality controlled 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 and humanities	Biomedicine, pharmacology, toxicology, life sciences, and healthcare admin	Nursing, biomedicine, allied health and alternative medicine	Psychological literature incl. social, behavioral, and health sciences	Evidence for healthcare interventions and diagnostic assessment	Multidisciplinary incl. science, technology, education, humanities & social sci	Life sciences: biotechnology, neuroscience, pharmacology, toxicology, and zoology
Subject Headings:	MeSH	Emtree	CINAHL Subject Terms	APA Thesaurus Terms	MeSH, but only for some records	N/A	N/A
QUL Platforms:	Ovid and PubMed	Ovid	Ebsco	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
Ovid MEDLINE database contains more than 38 million references to biomedical and life sciences literature. The primary component of Ovid MEDLINE is MEDLINE, which is produced by the National Library of Medicine in the U.S. and contains more than 31 million references from over 5,200 scholarly journals published around the world. In addition to MEDLINE content, Ovid MEDLINE includes citations that are being processed for MEDLINE, citations that are out-of-scope from MEDLINE journals, "ahead of print" citations that precede the article's final publication in a MEDLINE journal, and more.

The same content in Ovid MEDLINE can also be searched in PubMed.

Bracken Library Database Highlight: Ovid MEDLINE
Date Coverage: 1946 to Present
PubMed
PubMed is a free literature database that contains more than 38 million references to biomedical and life sciences literature. The primary component of PubMed is MEDLINE, which is produced by the National Library of Medicine in the U.S. and contains more than 31 million references from over 5,200 scholarly journals published around the world. In addition to MEDLINE content, PubMed includes citations that are being processed for MEDLINE, citations that are out-of-scope from MEDLINE journals, "ahead of print" citations that precede the article's final publication in a MEDLINE journal, and more. Mobile access is available for PubMed.

The same content in PubMed can also be searched in Ovid MEDLINE .

Bracken Library Database Highlight: CINAHL

Date Coverage: 1946 – present
EMBASE
Embase (Excerpta Medica Database) is a biomedical and pharmacological database produced by Elsevier B.V., containing more than 45 million records from over 8,500 journals published world-wide. It contains bibliographic records with citations, abstracts, and indexing derived from articles in peer reviewed journals, articles in preprint servers medRxiv and bioRxiv, and abstracts and papers from over 15,000 conferences. Embase has especially strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research, pharmacology and toxicology.
Date Coverage: 1947 - present
CINAHL and Pre-CINAHL
CINAHL provides indexing for more than 6,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health. The database contains more than 8 million records, offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses’ Association. CINAHL covers nursing, biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters. Searchable cited references for more than 1,300 journals are also included.

Bracken Library Database Highlight: CINAHL:

https://youtu.be/UAnQfrw0Acg?si=wr3IH5GMyEV0R8_m

Date Coverage: 1981 - very recent articles
APA PsycInfo [via Ovid]
APA PsycInfo® is an electronic bibliographic database providing abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. The database 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. Updated weekly, APA PsycInfo® provides access to journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations.
REF BF1.P94 1927-1995 (Psychological Abstracts)

Date Coverage: 1806-present
Cochrane Library
The Cochrane Library is a collection of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. The Cochrane Library, published by Wiley, includes:

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - peer-reviewed systematic reviews and protocols from the leading resource for systematic reviews in health care.

Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) - a highly concentrated source of references to reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials.

Cochrane Clinical Answers (CCAs) - clinically-focused entry point to rigorous research from Cochrane Reviews. CCAs are designed to be actionable and to inform point-of-care decision-making. Each CCA contains a clinical question, a short answer, and data for the outcomes from the Cochrane Review deemed most relevant to practicing healthcare professionals.

The Cochrane Library can also be searched on the Ovid platform via EBM Reviews. Ovid EBM Reviews also includes ACP Journal Club.
EBM Reviews - Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials is a bibliographic database of definitive controlled trials, and part of Ovid's EBM Reviews collection. It contains over 300,000 bibliographic references to controlled trials in health care together with references to clinical trials identified by contributors to the Cochrane Collaboration in MEDLINE and EMBASE. Contributors follow quality control standards to ensure that only reports of definite randomized controlled trials or controlled clinical trials are included. These controlled trials included were identified by the contributors to the Cochrane Collaboration to create an unbiased source of data for systematic reviews.

2-user limit
EBM Reviews - Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is part of Ovid's EBM Reviews collection, and includes the full text of the regularly updated systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare prepared by The Cochrane Collaboration.

2-user limit
Joanna Briggs Institute EBP
The JBI EBP Database allows you to search simultaneously, a wide range of summarized and appraised evidence, to inform your practice. This comprehensive range of resources includes over 3,000 records across five publication types: Evidence Based Recommended Practices, Evidence Summaries, Best Practice Information Sheets, Systematic Reviews, and Systematic Review Protocols.
Web of Science (Core Collection)
A large, multidisciplinary database, Web of Science 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.
This database consists of these subject components, which can be searched simultaneously or individually (to search individually, limit to required citation database(s) at bottom of screen):

Science Citation Index Expanded - science and technology journals from 1900-present
Social Sciences Citation Index - social sciences journals from 1956-present
Arts & Humanities Citation Index - arts and humanities journals from 1975-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (CPCI-S) from 1990-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) from 1990-present
Journal Citation Reports (listing impact factors and other journal performance metrics) are available through Web of Science.

Science Citation Index: 1900 - present ; Social Sciences Citation Index: 1956 - present ; Arts and Humanities: 1975 - present
BIOSIS Previews
Life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more.

Date Coverage: 1926- present
BIOSIS Previews 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.

Subject coverage: All areas of life science, including such topics as: agriculture, biochemistry, biotechnology, ecology, immunology, microbiology, molecular genetics, neuroscience, pharmacology, public health, toxicology, zoology.

Because Queen's University Library subscribes to both BIOSIS Previews and Web of ScienceÂ®, a link in a full record from BIOSIS will take you to the corresponding record in ISI Web of Science.

Further information: Available on the vendor's website.
Google Scholar
Free access

Use the Google 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.
Should you encounter a captcha problem, you can still search QUL resources by going to https://scholar.google.com following the instructions here.