Chapter 5
Medical Databases on the Internet

Overview
The Internet has democratised health information. Sources such as clinical guidelines, drug compendiums and medical textbooks - which were previously only accessible to doctors and other health professionals - can now be accessed by anyone at the click of a button. Perhaps even more striking, however, is the fact that patients and their carers now enjoy equal (and free) access to a variety of research databases such as MEDLINE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Using these tools individuals can readily access current research and see what the state of knowledge is (referred to as the evidence-base) in any given topic.

This chapter discusses a number of freely available medical research databases and demonstrates how each can be searched to find timely and relevant information.

Key topics covered in this chapter

The database is primarily used to identify published research on a specific topic. Crucially, as MEDLINE only indexes articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals - all articles have been independently reviewed and approved - the information is generally of high quality.

Note: Since the book was published the data in this database has migrated to PubMed MEDLINE. However, by using the link presented here searches can be restricted to those articles that focus on alternative and complementary medicine.