Physical Therapy Research Guide  Tags: health medicine rehabilitation physical_therapy  

1. Key Databases in the Health Sciences

• ​CINAHLPlus (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature)
  Indexes over 3,800 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, with indexing for selected journals back to 1937. Topics covered are related to nursing, physical therapy, health education, social service/healthcare, occupational therapy, and related disciplines. CINAHL also provides access to healthcare books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of professional practice, educational software and audiovisual materials in nursing.


• ​ EMBASE 1980-present
  EMBASE, the Excerpta Medica database, produced by Elsevier Science, is a major biomedical and pharmaceutical database indexing over 3,500 international journals in the following fields: drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, clinical and experimental human medicine, health policy and management, public health, occupational health, environmental health, drug dependence and abuse, psychiatry, forensic medicine, and biomedical engineering/instrumentation. There is selective coverage for nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, psychology, and alternative medicine.


• ​MEDLINE/Pubmed 1966-present
  or ​or MEDLINE via Ovid Widely recognized as the premier source for bibliographic and abstract coverage of biomedical literature. Encompasses information from Index Medicus, Index to Dental Literature, and International Nursing Index, as well as other sources in the areas of allied health, physical therapy, health education, biological and physical sciences, humanities and information science as they relate to medicine and health care, communication disorders, population biology, and reproductive biology. More than 16 million records from more than 5200 journals are indexed. Use the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary to determine appropriate search terms. Vocabulary mapping also available online. Select "tools" from the MEDLINE main search page. Read more about MeSH at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html
  

  (Non-NYU users may access MEDLINE and related databases free via the www at: ​PubMed http://pubmed.gov
  OLD MEDLINE (citations from 1958-1965) is searchable via the NLM gateway at: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd

  (Print counterparts: Index Medicus 1960-1996, Ref9 Index Z6660.I42, and International Nursing Index, 1966-present, Ref9 Index Z6675.N7  I5)
  
  

• Web of Science 1945-present
  Multidisciplinary coverage of over 10,000 high-impact journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as international proceedings coverage for over 120,000 conferences. Also includes acoustics, general and internal medicine, medical informatics, nutrition/dietetics, OB/GYN, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, rehabilitation, and public, environmental & occupational health. The Web of Science databases have the ability to link to relevant prior research and perform cited reference searches to track subsequent research.(Print counterpart: Science Citation Index, 1964-present, Ref9 Index Z7401.S365)

2. Complementary and Alternative Medicine

See also CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Health Reference Center Academic (Section 1) and CAB Health Section 6

Link to a research guide for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

• Alt HealthWatch
  Focuses on the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness. This database provides full text for articles, from more than 140 international and often peer-reviewed reports, proceedings as well as association and consumer newsletters. In addition, includes hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, special reports, original research and book excerpts.
  
  
• Natural Standard: The Authority on Integrative Medicine [nyu.edu account users only] Provides evidence-based information about complementary and alternative therapies. Contains three sub-databases: Herbs & Supplements, Condition Center,and Complementary Practices. Information is incorporated into comprehensive monographs which are designed to facilitate clinical decision making. All monographs undergo blinded editorial and peer review prior to inclusion in Natural Standard databases. Levels of scientific evidence scales are used to evaluate the quality of available evidence.


• Link to  MEDLINEPlus aggregated CAM site at:      http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alternativemedicine.html

3. Behavioral and Social Aspects of Health

• Ageline 1978-present
  Produced by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) AGELINE provides bibliographic coverage of social gerontology, which is the study of aging in psychological, health-related, social, and economic contexts. The delivery of health care to the older population and its associated costs and policies is particularly well covered, as are consumer, employment, and public policy issues. Literature covered is of interest to researchers, health professionals, service planners, policymakers, employers, older adults and their families, and consumer advocates.
  
  
• AnthropologyPlus Useful for the literature on cross-cultural practices related to food, diet, eating behavior. Covers social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture and interdisciplinary studies.
  
  
• Anthrosource cross-disciplinary resources for all things anthropological.
  
  
• eHRAF World Cultures A cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life.
  
  
• Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI) 1985-present, with many earlier measures
  Access to information on measurement instruments (i.e., questionnaires, interview schedules, checklists, index measures, coding schemes/manuals, rating scales, projective techniques, vignettes/scenarios, tests) from a variety of fields including public health, nursing, psychology, human resources, sociology, and communication. Records include publication information, abstracts, and references. Records are indexed according to the MeSH subject headings and the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (Ref6 and Ref9 Z695.1     P7 T48 1997).


• Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) 1989 to present
  Frequently referred to as "Buros," after its longtime editor the late Oscar Buros, this series compiles original reviews of and citations to articles about many commercially available     educational, psychological, and vocational tests. (Print counterpart: Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY), 1941 to present. Bobst Ref6 Z5814.P8 R93; [latest edition at Bobst Ref 6 desk]


• "Population Studies" category at Project J-STOR,
  Offers a searchable archive of a collection of full-text electronic journals related to Demography and Family Planning.
  
  
• PILOTS: sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, an electronic index to the traumatic stress literature, its goal is to include citations to all literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health sequelae of traumatic events, without disciplinary, linguistic, or geographical limitations, and to offer both current and retrospective coverage. 1871-present.


• ​ PsycINFO 1887-present
  A 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. Covers many health-related fields, including all aspects of mental health, nursing, health administration, pharmacology, rehabilitation, and epidemiology. Articles cited cover topics such as the behavioral causes and effects of physical disorders, health promotion and disease prevention, behavioral aspects of care, behavioral treatments for physical illness, linguistics and language. Heavy emphasis on literature related to substance abuse, addiction, and rehabilitation. Also covers cognitive, vocational, and psychosocial rehabilitation, speech-language pathology, ergonomics, occupational therapy, health education, counseling and guidance. Uses the subject headings (descriptors) in the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (Ref6 and Ref9 Z695.1 P7 T48 1997 (Print counterpart: Psychological Abstracts, 1927-present, Ref6 Index Z7202.P9)


• ​Web of Science 1956-present
  Multidisciplinary coverage of over 10,000 high-impact journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as international proceedings coverage for over 120,000 conferences. Also includes acoustics, general and internal medicine, medical informatics, nutrition/dietetics, OB/GYN, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, rehabilitation, and public, environmental & occupational health. The Web of Science databases have the ability to link to relevant prior research and perform cited reference searches to track subsequent research.(Print counterpart: Science Citation Index, 1964-present, Ref9 Index Z7401.S365)

5. Consumer Health/Patient Information

See Health and Wellness Resource Center and CINAHL, Section 1, Periodical Abstracts Section 11 and Nutrition  Section 13.

• MedlinePlus MedlinePlus
  Authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news.

6. Diseases

See also: CINAHL, Health and Wellness Resource Center, and MEDLINE (Section 1),

• Global Health 1973-present, a unique resource which offers a substantially deeper subject coverage of information related to human health and communicable diseases than many other sources currently available. Global Health provides an alternative, complementary point of reference with a broad analysis of foreign language journals, books, research reports, patents and standards, dissertations, conference proceedings, annual reports, public health, developing country information, and other difficult to obtain material. * communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS) * tropical diseases, i.e, diseases in the tropics (including field and experimental studies) * parasitic diseases and parasitology - medical entomology * human nutrition (including food composition, food poisoning, effects of diet on health, nutritional disorders, and experimental aspects) * community and public health (including chronic diseases, occupational health, health status indicators, the impact of agriculture on health, and cancer epidemiology) * medicinal and poisonous plants (including pharmacology, tissue culture, animal studies, plant composition, allergens, and toxins)
  
  
• NIAAA Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Science Database (ETOH) Late 1960s-present
  Link via the www at: http://etoh.niaaa.nih.gov/Commonly referred to as ETOH,the most comprehensive online resource covering all aspects of alcohol abuse and     alcoholism. Produced by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), ETOH contains over 110,000 records and is accessed by both researchers and clinicians worldwide.  Includes abstracts and bibliographic references to journal articles, books, dissertation abstracts, conference papers and proceedings, reports and studies, and chapters in edited works.     Updated monthly.

7. Drug Information

Drug information in the journal literature is indexed in MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, Health Reference Center Academic and other databases in Section 1. Clinical reference sources are listed below, and more comprehensively at Research Guide for Drug Information.

• STAT!REF
  Full-text medical and drug information for healthcare professionals. Includes more than 25 medical reources such as Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment, Current Pediatric Diagnosis and Treatment, DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision 2000), USP DI Vols 1 and 2, AHFS Drug Information and more.


• Lippincott's Nursing Drug Guide
  Searchable electronic text version of this reference book. Search full text to locate your topic.

​8. Evidence Based Healthcare

Resources for Evidence Based Healthcare are linked at: Evidence Based Pyramid

​9. Health Education
The best indexing coverage for Health Education is found in MEDLINE, EMBASE (Section 1) and PsycINFO (Section 3). See also: CINAHL, Health and Wellness Resource Center(Section 1) and ERIC below.

• ERIC (1966 to present)
  Provides citations to educational materials indexed by the U.S. Department of Education's Educational Resources Information Center, including articles appearing in more than 700 journals and hundreds of significant research reports (federal, state and local) covering all aspects of the field of education. Includes abstracts. Print counterparts: Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE), 1969 to present (for journal articles); Resources in Education (RIE), 1966 to present (for research reports). Bobst Ref6. Note: Copies of ERIC research reports are available on microfiche in the Microform Center, Level A.

10. History of Medicine

• ​MEDLINE/Pubmed 1966-present
  or ​or MEDLINE via Ovid MEDLINE now includes the previous Histline files [Citations to literature about the history of health-related professions, sciences, specialties, individuals, institutions, drugs, and  diseases in all part of the world and all historic periods.]. Perform a MEDLINE search by topic [e.g., tuberculosis] and then use the "limit" icon to limit by publication type to "historical article."
  

  In the Pubmed version of MEDLINE, search by topic [e.g., tuberculosis] limited to publication type historical article by typing the following command: tuberculosis AND historical article [pt]
  (Print counterpart: Bibliography of the History of Medicine 1970-1993 Ref9 Index Z6660.B582)



• History of Science, Technology & Medicine 1975-present
  File describes journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of science, technology,     and medicine and allied historical fields. The History of Science, Technology, and Medicine integrates four bibliographies: the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology (Technology and Culture), the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza and the Wellcome Library for the History and     Understanding of Medicine. Updated annually.
  
  
• Bulletin of the History of Medicine 1996-present
  This is not an index, but an online searchable version of one journal: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Full text, online edition at Project MUSE. 

​12. Nursing
See also: Key Indexes in the Health Sciences (Section 1) Social Sciences Citation Index, PsycINFO (Section 3). 

• Nursing and Allied Health(Gale): bundled database/resource of academic journals, books, magazines, news, and multimedia.
  
  
• Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library--Registry of Nursing Research
  A database of nursing research abstracts that have been posted in the Registry of Nursing Research,  an index of over 11,000 English-language studies contributed by nurse researchers internationally. Research findings are indexed by variables or phenomenon of study as well as by author, title, or keywords provided by the researchers. Studies are not peer-reviewed for quality. It is up to the individual registrant to provide enough information about her or his work to allow the users to make their own determinations of relevance and quality.

13. Nutrition/Diet

See also: Health and Wellness Resource Center (Section 1), Alternative Medicine (Section 2), Periodical Abstracts (Section 11) and Library Research Guide for Nutrition and Food Science

• AGRICOLA 1984-present
  Citations and abstracts of literature relating to agriculture, food and nutrition, food service management, natural resources and pollution, consumer protection and home economics.
  
  
• AnthropologyPlus Useful for the literature on cross-cultural practices related to food, diet, eating behavior. Covers social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture and interdisciplinary studies.
  
  
• Anthrosource cross-disciplinary resources for all things anthropological.
  
  
• eHRAF World Cultures A cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life.


• Food Science and Technology Abstracts (FSTA) 1969-present
  Indexes approximately 1800 journals and many other types of literature (books, conference proceedings, theses, patents, standards, legislation, etc.), published in over 40 languages,  with the items relevant to the food sector.
  
  
• Nutrition and Food Sciences Database Subject coverage of Clinical nutrition, Food science, Food technology, Nutrition physiology, Nutritional techniques and methodologies, Public health nutrition
  

14. Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Rehabilitation

The literature of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy is primarily indexed in MEDLINE and CINAHL (Section 1). See also Indexes for Behavioral and Social Aspects of Health (Section 3) and consider:

• NARIC's REHABDATA Literature Database (1956-present)
  Link via the www at http://www.naric.com/research/rehab/
  Produced by the National Rehabilitation Information Center, the leading literature database on disability and rehabilitation. The main file, 1993-present, describes over 12,000 documents covering physical, mental, and psychiatric disabilities, independent living, vocational rehabilitation, special education, assistive technology, law, employment, and other     issues as they relate to people with disabilities. The types of documents described in REHABDATA include research reports, books, journal articles, and audiovisual materials.     For historical records, search the REHABDATA Backfile: 1956 - 1992.
  
   
• OT Search (AOTA Occupational Therapy Search)  Includes monographs, proceedings, reports, doctoral dissertations, master's theses and retrospective collection of OT journals and newsletters held in the Wilma L. West Library, a national clearinghouse of occupational therapy information for AOTA members and personnel. Link to content list.
  
  
• OT Seeker  Free database 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. These ratings will help you to judge the quality and usefulness of trials for informing clinical interventions. In one database, OTseeker provides you with fast and easy access to trials from a wide range of sources.


• Krakauer, L.J., ed. The Year Book of Sports Medicine. 1981-present
  Ref9 Index RC1200.Y4
  Provides abstracts of scholarly articles with substantive editorial comments. Subjects include exercise physiology and medicine, biomechanics, sports injuries, pediatric sports     medicine, women in sports, and athletic training.


• Pandolf, K.B.,ed. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews. 1973-present
  Ref 9 Index RC1200.E94
  Reviews current research concerning behavioral, biochemical, biomechanical, clinical, physiological and rehabilitational topics involving exercise science.
  
  
• Safety Lit Injury Prevention Literature An online source for current and past scholarly research about all aspects of injury prevention.  A searchable archive of more than 95,000 items  from anthropology, economics, education, engineering specialties, ergonomics, law and law enforcement, medicine, physiology, psychology, public health, public safety, nursing, social work, traffic safety, and other fields.

15. Science--Interdisciplinary

See also: RG14/Indexes in Science and Technology at: http://library.nyu.edu/research/rg14.html

• Biological Abstracts1985-present
  World's largest index for the life sciences includes citations and abstracts from the bioscientific literature in 6000 journals, proceedings, reports, books and book chapters in     biology, clinical and experimental medicine, biochemistry, instrumentation, and methods.
  (Print counterpart: Biological Abstracts, 1926-present, Ref 9 Index QH301.B45)


• Dissertation Abstracts 1861-present
  Indexes doctoral dissertations in all disciplines which were completed at accredited North American colleges and universities, and some foreign universities. This database includes     abstracts only for dissertations completed since 1980. Can be searched by author, discipline, subject keywords, and institution. Also available in Microform.


• Web of Science 1945-present
  Multidisciplinary coverage of over 10,000 high-impact journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as international proceedings coverage for over 120,000 conferences. Also includes acoustics, general and internal medicine, medical informatics, nutrition/dietetics, OB/GYN, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, rehabilitation, and public, environmental & occupational health. The Web of Science databases have the ability to link to relevant prior research and perform cited reference searches to track subsequent research.(Print counterpart: Science Citation Index, 1964-present, Ref9 Index Z7401.S365)

   

16. Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology

The literature of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology is primarily indexed in MEDLINE, (Section 1), PsycINFO (Section 3), and Web of Science above. Also consider:

• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) 1973 - present
  Coverage of over 1300 journals focusing on the nature and use of language in three fundamental areas: research in linguistics (the nature and structure of human speech); research in     language (speech sounds, sentence and word structure, meaning in language forms, spelling, phonetics); and research in speech, language, and hearing pathology. The database consists of     over 285,000 bibliographic records with abstracts citing journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and reviews of books and other media. English abstracts of publications     in over 30 languages.

17. Statistics

• FedStats Link via the web at: http://www.fedstats.gov/
  FedStats is the new window on the full range of official statistical information available to the public from the Federal Government. The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical     Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to the full range of statistics and information produced by more than 70 Federal government agencies.


• Statistical Universe(early 1960's-present)
  Abstracts and index to U.S. & state governments and privately published & international and intergovernmental statistical sources (Print counterparts in REF6: American     Statistics Index [ASI], Statistical Reference Index [SRI], and Index to International Statistics [ IIS]).