In terms of health related reviews, the following databases will be important:
Access a full list of all library databases via the A-Z databases on the library website.
All our databases are accessible off-campus using your DCU username and password.
The databases and other sources you use to identify all 
relevant studies to be included in your review will be determined by your own research question(s). You may need to follow specific guidelines such as Cochrane or PRISMA but in general you will need to search across a number of databases ranging from discipline specific databases to multidisciplinary databases. For medical/health related reviews of interventions it is recommended you include Medline and Embase alongside other relevant databases.
Discipline specific databases are very comprehensive in their coverage of a particular field. To find out which databases are relevant to your specific context, check out the guides developed by our Subject Librarians to see their recommended list of databases for particular subjects. Examples of discipline specific databases include:
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Medline (Medical Literature) Embase (Biomedical Literature) Cinahl (Nursing and Allied Health Literature) Education Research Complete (Education Literature) PsycInfo (Psychology Literature) |
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It is generally recommended to search one or more multidisciplinary databases in addition to discipline specific databases. Two key multidisciplinary databases covering the literature across all disciplines (humanities/social sciences/sciences) are Scopus and Web of Science. These are also citation databases and offer additional search features and information (see below). There is overlap in their coverage of scholarly literature but they do also have unique content e.g. coverage of conference proceedings and books. WoS Core Collection includes the Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Science and Social Science editions).
Note: When choosing to search the Web of Science it's important to be specific as to the databases within WoS that you select to search so others can replicate your search. DCU Library provides access to the full WoS (all databases) option or you can choose to search toe WoS Core Collection or your own selected databases.
Clinical Trials
To decrease the risk of reporting bias, it is recommend that registries of clinical trials be searched where relevant.
- Cochrane Central Registry of Clinical Trials (access via library website)
- ClinicalTrials.gov (National Institutes of Health, US)
- ISRCTN Registry - UK's Clinical Studies Registry
"The registry aims to include all interventional and non-interventional clinical studies that prospectively involve UK participants and evaluate biomedical or health-related outcomes. Studies conducted outside the UK or considered to be non-clinical studies (e.g. public health studies) can be registered on ISRCTN"
- WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP)
Grey Literature
As seen above, databases cover some grey literature for example conference proceedings and dissertations/theses. To help find relevant governmental or technical reports, it is useful to conduct a search using a search engine like Google. The Library provides access to the international database ProQuest Dissertations & Theses which should be searched for relevant theses. In some cases, the full text is available as many theses/dissertations are shared openly via institutional repositories as is the case for DCU via DORAS. You can search for DCU theses via the ProQuest database too.
Citation databases offer added value over other databases. In addition to providing bibliographic details of articles/papers (e.g. t
itle, abstract, keyword, author) they also provide details of cited articles (list of references at the end of the article) and citing articles (articles that have cited the article).
Scopus and Web of Science are probably the most well known citation databases. They are both multidisciplinary databases and cover a large number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
Citation searching allows you to easily see which articles/papers have cited other authors' articles/papers (see: Citation Searching Diagram to the right). This allows you to track how a piece of work has influenced further work and investigations. Citation tracking is particularly useful if your search yields a small number of results or if you have already identified some seminal papers and want to see how others have further developed the original ideas/research. Citation databases can also help you identify the most cited papers on a particular topic or by a particular author.
Watch a video which shows how you track citations using Scopus.
You may also wish to browse key journals for supplements, special editions etc for relevant studies/articles.
Image: Bonnie Swoger, 2014 (CC BY 4.0)