LibGuides: Social Sciences & Social Work: Key Databases

Database search operators

Database search operators

Assistance

Accessing eresources from home

Problems accessing e-Resources

Help with searching

Key Journal Databases

TIP! Designing a search strategy will save your time.

APA PsycINFO (1806 - present) This link opens in a new window APA PsycINFO is an electronic 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. Updated weekly, PsycINFO provides access to journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations.

User guidance

Child Development & Adolescent Studies This link opens in a new window Covers current and historical literature related to growth and development of children through the age of 21. It includes all of the issues of Child Development Abstracts & Bibliography from 1927-2001 plus new coverage on child rights and welfare issues.
CINAHL Plus This link opens in a new window Covers nursing and allied health literature from 1982 to the present. Includes abstracts of journal articles, books, dissertations, and proceedings. Full text is included for selected state nursing journals and some newsletters, standards of practice, practice acts, government publications, research instruments and patient education material.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) This link opens in a new window An online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window A major international social science database which includes a wide range of social science journals with good coverage of European material.
Medline ALL This link opens in a new window Ovid MEDLINE covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 5,400 journals published world-wide.
PTSDpubs This link opens in a new window Provides citations and abstracts to the international literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health sequelae of traumatic events.
PubMed This link opens in a new window PubMed is a digital archive of life sciences journal literature, maintained by the US National Library of Medicine. Search this special version of PubMed instead of going directly to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed to link to full text of articles in journals subscribed to by QUB (denoted by presence of QConnect button).
Scopus This link opens in a new window SCOPUS is the world's largest bibliographic and citation database. It covers nearly 20,000 academic journals from a wide range of subjects and dates from 1996 to the present. SCOPUS will also be the source of the citation data which will be used by some of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment panels. As well as carrying out literature searches, you can set up current awareness alerts, view citation counts, determine your h-index and assess the quality of journal titles. SCOPUS is part of the SciVerse suite of resources which is produced by Elsevier and includes the ScienceDirect electronic journals service.

Social Care Online (SCIE) A comprehensive UK database of information related to social care. Resources are abstracted and include journal articles, books, reports, government publications and evidence-based practice guidelines. The full-text of some documents is available online. Social Care Online is updated daily by the (SCIE). To use the Advanced Search option, it is necessary to set up a free personal SCIE Account.

Social Policy and Practice This link opens in a new window A 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. Information is sourced from the Centre for Policy and Ageing, Greater London Authority, IDOX Information Service, National Children’s Bureaux and Social Care Instutitute for Excellence.
Social Science Citation Index This link opens in a new window Part of the Web of Science, this service indexes a wide range of journals in the social sciences, allows searching by article citation, and provides article abstracts.
Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window Bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Sociological Abstracts (1952 - current) This link opens in a new window Indexes journal articles books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers in sociology and related disciplines from 1963 onwards. Abstracts are included from 1974 onwards.

Other Scholarly Sources

Alexander Street Press (ProQuest) Behavioural & Mental Health Collection This link opens in a new window Alexander Street Press (ProQuest) Behavioural & Mental Health Collection provides access to more than 2,500 videos and almost 3,500 books, documents and transcripts, Behavioral and Mental Health Online is a fundamental resource for studying and teaching in the areas of behavioral and mental health and includes: clinical mental health demonstrations, video of real clinical mental health sessions, largest amount of DSM-5®/ICD-10 video content, documentaries on the human condition, psychotherapy transcripts, client narratives, reference works, clinical mental health textbooks and workbooks, psychological experiments and more. New content added quarterly. This resource will be of interest to those studying and teaching in the areas of Counselling, Social Work, Nursing, Medicine, Psychology, and Behavioral Health.
BOB This link opens in a new window BOB, powered by Learning on Screen, allows users to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels; and search our archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts.

Campbell Collaboration Provides systemic reviews of research evidence in social, behavioural and educational arenas.
Cochrane Library High-quality, independent evidence informing healthcare decision-making, and a seventh database that provides information about groups in The Cochrane Collaboration
EPPI Centre Database of Education Research This resource assists with the discovery of systematic reviews. Select the Evidence Library to see the index and chronological list of reviews.
ESRC today Provided through the Economic and Social Research Council , this resource provides free access to social and economic research material, including research findings, full text reports and original data sets.

HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium) This link opens in a new window The Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database draws together information relating to health policy and management from two sources: the Department of Health's Library and Information Services and King’s Fund Information and Library Service. It contains over 244,000 records from 1979 to the present.

LOMOND (Peace Process Layers of Meaning) An online directory is an archive of interviews of the recollections and views of key figures in the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window Mass Observation Online makes available original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features. This resource covers the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering an unparalleled insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years.

Nexis UK (newspapers) Provides access to local, national and international newspapers and market and industry reports with archives.
OECD Social Issues, Migration, Health iLibrary Provides access to all books, periodicals and online databases published by OECD in the area of social issues, migration and health.
Theses A guide to discovering theses from around the world.

More Databases for Social Work

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of primary research in human health care and health policy, and are internationally recognised as the highest standard in evidence-based health care.
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) Reports of randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials indexed produced by the Cochrane Library
ClinicalTrials.gov A registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) DARE contains details of systematic reviews that evaluate the effects of healthcare interventions and the delivery and organisation of health services.
Database of promoting health effectiveness reviews (DoPHER) Database focusing of systematic and non-systematic reviews of effectiveness in health promotion and public health worldwide.
International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) World Health Organization's databases of ongoing and completed clinical trials.
Trials Register of Promoting Health Interventions (TRoPHI) Database covering trials of interventions in health promotion and public health worldwide.

Social Sciences & Social Work: Key Databases

Selecting key databases

Database search operators

Assistance

Key Journal Databases

Other Scholarly Sources

More Databases for Social Work