Pharmacy: Finding articles on a topic

If you experience any problems when trying to access the electronic resources there is a troubleshooting guide or please don't hesitate to contact your subject librarian.

Databases are subject based search engines that enable you to search across a large number of journals simultaneously.  Before using databases, remember to break your search/topic down into two or three key concepts.

• Think of keywords, including synonyms, for each concept.
• Search for your keywords or concepts one at a time - don't enter them all into the search box together as you would on Article Search.
• Once you have searched for each keyword separately use OR to combine the synonyms and finally, AND to combine each concept.

EXAMPLE

Evaluate the use of iloprost in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension

Concept 1: iloprost OR ventavis OR ZK36374

Concept 2 : pulmonary hypertension OR primary pulmonary hypertension OR familial primary pulmonary hypertension

• Use the limits in the databases to further reduce your search results.
• Searches carried out can be saved or alerts created - set up a user account within the database.
• For each search result, use the   link to check if it is available via the library.

Once you have retrieved the relevant literature there are some useful tools to help you appraise it.  Below are links to some that are freely available.