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Occupational Therapy Resources

Core and Focused Databases

 

Below are some databases that might be helpful to look through when starting your research. These are organized as "Core" and "Focused." Core databases are larger, sometimes multidisciplinary databases that are considered a standard database to search in the medical field. Focused databases are often smaller, more subject-specific databases that you might search depending on the nature of your question or what publication type you are interested in.


 

Core Databases

Database:

What information is in this database:

 

PubMed

Access to citations in MEDLINE with links to participating journals. This one of the first databases you should search for anything related to health.

Embase

Embase is a biomedical database, like PubMed, but it has more literature from the UK and other parts of the world. This is a great one to search if your question is not US-specific.

CINAHL

(Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health)

This database covers a wide variety of allied health literature, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, and more. This is one of the main databases for the allied health field.

Scopus

This is a big, multidisciplinary database that covers at lot of fields. It has some additional tools, such as links to references and an option to filter by subject area.

Web of Science

This one is very similar to Scopus in the fact that it is big and multidisciplinary. One helpful feature is filtering for "highly cited" papers – so you can find the seminal works that everyone is citing in their research.

 

 

Focused Databases

Database:

This Database is great for...

 

Education Database

(via Proquest)

When your research question is rooted in education, or about educating others. Proquest's Education Database indexes various occupational therapy and other health-related journals. Additionally, it also covers content such as higher education, educational theory, and research on implementation and practice.

Sociology Source Ultimate

When you have a topic about sociology, religion, socio-cultural anthropology, and more. This is a database that searches a lot like CINAHL and has a smaller, more Western focus in regards to content.

 

Sociological Abstracts

When you have a sociological research question that is global in scope. This database houses international literature in sociology and related social and behavioral sciences disciplines.

 

PsycINFO

Research questions rooted in psychology. This database covers multiple medical disciplines as well as education, pharmacology, and more.

 

 

Religion Studies

Research questions with a heavy focus on religion or theology. This database contains a mix of scholarly and non-scholarly, covering formal theological discussions and commentary on topics of general interest from the perspectives of many worldwide religions.