Recommended Article
Bramer, W. M., Rethlefsen, M. L., Kleijnen, J., & Franco, O. H. (2017). Optimal database combinations for literature searches in systematic reviews: a prospective exploratory study. Systematic reviews, 6(1), 245. doi:10.1186/s13643-017-0644-y
Journal Databases
These are commonly used databases for systematic reviews. Depending on your research question, you might want to consider other databases.
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowComprehensive coverage of abstracts to the biomedical literature. Includes medicine, the allied health disciplines, and biomedical literature
- Embase This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive biomedical database with coverage of internationally published journals. This is especially recommended for global health research..
- CINAHL: Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature This link opens in a new windowIncludes medicine, the allied health disciplines, and biomedical literature.
- APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new windowProvides access to articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations that cover the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences.
- ERIC (via ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowJournal articles, conference reports, and government documents on all areas of education.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowThis database is a core general science resource, covering all aspects of scientific literature. It also has a number of tools that make it a unique resource for finding scholarly literature. Item records come with links both to the works cited by the paper in question and the future works that cite that paper.
- Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts This link opens in a new window
ASSIA indexes and abstracts articles on health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Sources are from 16 countries, including the UK and US.
- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews This link opens in a new window
A collection of systematic reviews on the impact of health-related interventions & treatments. Updated regularly.
Search Engines & Directories of Grey Literature Producing Organizations
- Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks This link opens in a new windowPublications from a wide variety of think tanks and policy organizations around the world.
- Policy Commons: Public Health and Social Care This link opens in a new windowPolicy statements on public health topics.
- Overton This link opens in a new windowOverton is a searchable index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers. BU email address required to create account with a unique password (different from your Kerberos password) and access content.
