Comparison of Databases for Complex Evidence Syntheses on Education for the Health Professions

Abstract

Increased requests for assistance with literature searches on educational topics within the health professions motivated two health science librarians to analyze search function and results in eleven bibliographic databases on questions representing three allied health instructional target populations (patient, caregiver, and future health professionals). Results overlap and relevance were estimated and useful functions and subject headings were examined, as evidence for future search and database recommendations. This research confirmed the authors’ hypothesis that PubMed and CINAHL overlapped significantly yet yielded sufficient unique citations to recommend searching both, plus at least one education-specific database. For the six questions researched, psychology and sports medicine databases were less productive.

Keywords:

• Bibliographic database comparison
• complex evidence syntheses
• database search functions
• database selection
• health professions

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the contribution of our six questions from the following individuals: Jason M. Beneciuk, PT, DPT, PhD, MPH, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Florida; Christine T. Myers, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, FNAP, Clinical Professor and Director, Doctor of OT Program, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida; Linda Struckmeyer, PhD, OTR/L, Clinical Assistant Professor and Capstone Coordinator, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida; Luther King, DrOT, MOT, OTR/L, CDRS, Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy, Governors State University; Shabnam Medhizadah, MS, Rehabilitation Science doctoral student; Mary Jeghers, PhD, OTR/L, DRS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data associated with this article are available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/uv789/.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Nancy Schaefer

Nancy Schaefer, MLIS, AHIP ([email protected]), Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Jane Morgan-Daniel

Jane Morgan-Daniel, MLIS, MA, AHIP ([email protected]), Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.