BIOMEDICAL LITERATURE SEARCHING II

Module II, Class II • Explore PubMed as an interface to MEDLINE• EMBASE & CINAHL

– Medline & Embase (scope, bias, interfaces)– CINAHL on Ebsco (nursing & allied health)

~ Break 7:15pm~

– Discuss article by Kelly et al– Find a partner– Discuss in larger group (Think-pair-share)

– Discuss assignment(s)

Medline – MeSH tree structures

Each of the 16 trees is assigned a letter as an identifier

A. Anatomy B. Organisms C. Diseases D. Chemical and Drugs E. Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment F. Psychiatry and Psychology G. Phenomena and ProcessesH. Disciplines and Occupations I. Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena J. Technology, Industry, Agriculture K. Humanities L. Information Science M. Named Groups N. Health Care O. Publication Characteristics P. Geographic Locations

EMTREE headings – 15 branches or ‘facets’

http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/embase

EMBASE’s preferred terms • organized into a (poly)hierarchical structure

• 15 branches called facets:

A Anatomical conceptsB Organism namesC Physical diseases, disorders and abnormalitiesD Chemicals and drugsE Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, equipment and parametersF Psychological and psychiatric phenomenaG Biological phenomena and functionsH Chemical, physical and mathematical phenomenaI Society and environmentJ Types of article or studyK Geographic namesL Groups by age and sexM Named groups of personsN Health care conceptsQ Biomedical disciplines, science and art

What do MeSH and EMTREE have in common?

• Both are comprehensive biomedical / life science vocabularies

• Similar faceted structure (Emtree (re)modeled on MeSH in 1988)

• Both thesauri have broader/narrower terms & use explode/focus

• Both have unique elements, levels of detail and subject focus

In the NLM Classification books on ‘pre-clinical’ topics are filed in…..

Embase synopsis in one (1) minute…

Think – Pair – Share

Start by saying:

• Embase is an important pharmaceutical database created by the European publisher Elsevier

• It provide detailed indexing of pharmacy-related content with coverage of more than 5600 journals

“I get by with a little help from my friends…[link]”

Medline & Embase – Key OLD facts

Embase• Biomedical database produced by Elsevier• Comprehensive coverage of biomedicine, drugs & pharmacology• Indexed with ~60,000 terms, 30,000 drug & chemical names• ~26 million records and 5600 journals• Overlap with Medline ca. 60% (at journal level)• Unique records especially drug titles PLUS European literature

Medline• Biomedical database produced by NLM (U.S. National Library of Medicine)• Focus on biomedicine incl. nursing, dentistry and veterinary science• Indexed with MeSH with over 27,000 total terms• 22 million records from 1966-present (excl. Old Medline)• 5600 journals; overlap with Embase ca. 60% (at journal level)• Unique records especially in US titles + nursing literature etc.

In searching – why choose Embase?

• EMTREE drug terminology is:• More extensive with extensive synonyms (including trade names)• 865 preferred terms added in 2012

• Organized in detailed tree structures in polyhierarchy of drug terms• Structured from multiple points of view and use• Best for identifying and searching for new drugs• Emtree includes all MeSH which are linked to EMTREE headings• Usually Embase is used in conjunction with other databases

CINAHL reflects nursing & allied health literature

CINAHL = Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health lit

Indexes ~1200 English language journals, 1981 to present

Updated every 2nd month

~70% of CINAHL headings adopted from MeSH

About 55% unique content specifically for nursing/ allied health

Note in a record how different limits are in CINAHL

Medline, Embase & Cinahl

• Three-way comparison• How do health librarians recommend one over another?

• Context is important – what is the clinical question? • Who is asking?

• Health librarians need to know coverage fully• Strengths, weaknesses of each database

• Nothing wrong with checking all three places• Both Medline & Embase citations are searchable on the web

• A lot of Cinahl’s content not searchable on the web