The NHS Library Hub is a good starting point for many searches in healthcare.
However, if you need a more focused, in-depth search of the literature then a search of a specific healthcare database is recommended.
Click on the tabs to access the databases available in each subject area.
Databases are provided by different hosts - mostly Ebsco, Ovid or Proquest.
Professional qualified ESNEFT Librarians can also perform searches for you - see our Evidence Searches page for more information.
MEDLINE covers medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and more (EBSCO and OVID)
Embase (Excerpta Medica Database) covers biomedical sciences and pharmacology (OVID).
The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
Trip was designed, twenty-five years ago, as a tool to support clinicians to answer their clinical questions using the best available evidence.
This focus remains and a major feature of Trip is evidence-based content (with a focus on evidence at the top of the evidence pyramid). While the focus is on clinicians, Trip is widely used by librarians and other information specialists.
CINAHL covers nursing and allied health (EBSCO).
British Nursing Index is a leading database for support of practice, education, and research for nurses, midwives, and health providers in the UK or following UK practice (ProQuest).
It provides references to literature in the most relevant nursing and midwifery journals. Also included are relevant nursing articles from selected medical, allied health, community and health management journals. Coverage is mainly titles published in the UK, plus a selection of important international nursing titles.
Coverage: 1994 - current
Emcare – nursing and allied health (OVID).
Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED) covers complementary medicine, palliative care, and several professions allied to medicine (OVID).
CINAHL covers nursing and allied health (EBSCO).
Physiotherapy evidence database (Free online database from the University of Sydney).
Business Source Complete is the world's definitive scholarly business database, providing the leading collection of bibliographic and full text content (EBSCO).
As part of the comprehensive coverage offered by this database, indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 are included. In addition, searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,300 journals.
Health Business Elite provides comprehensive journal content detailing all aspects of health care administration and other non-clinical aspects of health care institution management (EBSCO).
Topics covered include hospital management, hospital administration, marketing, human resources, computer technology, facilities management and insurance. Health Business Elite contains full text content for more than 570 journals such as H&HN: Hospitals & Health Networks, Harvard Business Review (available back to 1922), Health Facilities Management, Health Management Technology, Healthcare Financial Management, Marketing Health Services, Modern Healthcare, and many more.
The Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database is a compilation of data from two sources, the Department of Health's Library and Information Services and King’s Fund Information and Library Service (OVID).
Social Policy and Practice represents an important source of evidence-based social science research for policy-makers, practitioners, educators and students working within economic and social development, social administration, social services, and care management (OVID).
This database is published by the American Psychological Associations and provides comprehensive indexing and abstracts of the international psychological literature from the 1800s to the present (ProQuest)
Documents indexed include journals, articles, books, dissertations and more. 90% of the 3,000+ titles indexed in APA PsycINFO® are peer-reviewed.
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection covers emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry, psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods (EBSCO).
Training is available to help you plan and run your search
Training can take place in person at either Colchester (temporary unavailable) or Ipswich Hospital Library, or via Microsoft Teams.
Head over to our training pages for more information.
These modules are designed to help healthcare workforce (clinical and non-clinical) build confidence to search published literature for articles and evidence relevant to their work, study and research. The modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate. There are seven modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge: