Below are links to the some key sources of medicine- and healthcare-related grey literature, which is literature published by individuals or organisations whose primary activity is not publishing.
Examples of grey literature include newsletters, blogs, and reports found by general internet searches, as well as guidelines, dissertations and theses, clinical trial registry data, and conference abstracts.
If you have any questions about using these resources, or finding other types of grey literature, please email Richard Fallis.
Healthcare Library members can use various online university repositories to view open access (i.e. free) dissertations, theses, and other research outputs from the institutions in question.
Find repositories by searching the internet for university repository, or for a specific university name plus the word repository e.g. Queen's University Belfast repository.
Cochrane Library can also be used to find clinical trials indexed in Cochrane CENTRAL, by clicking on the Trials results tab after running a search.
The Ovid database Embase can be used to find conference abstracts, by running a full Embase search, then limiting results to conference abstracts only.
Preprints are article manuscripts that have not yet been submitted to a journal, or have been submitted and are awaiting peer review. Preprints should be used with caution, but may be useful for grey literature searches. Below are links to some key preprint archives:
Preprints may also be found in PubMed by limiting search results to article type 'Preprints'.
Google Scholar searches may also pick up preprints - check individual Google Scholar results to determine their preprint status.
The video below gives an overview of how to find medical and healthcare grey literature online, including identifying trials in Cochrane Library, and conference abstracts in Embase.
Video length: 6 minutes 45 seconds