How to: Search The Cochrane Library The Cochrane Library is a collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making, and a seventh database that provides information about groups in The Cochrane Collaboration. Where do I find it? The Cochrane Library is available on the internet, without the need for a username and password from http://www.thecochranelibrary.com What are the databases it contains? Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews – A systematic review identifies an intervention for a specific disease or other problem in health care, and determines whether or not this intervention works. To do this authors locate, appraise and synthesise evidence from as many relevant scientific studies as possible. They summarise conclusions about effectiveness, and provide a unique collation of the known evidence on a given topic, so that others can easily review the primary studies for any intervention. Systematic reviews differ from other types of review in that they adhere to a strict design in order to make them more comprehensive, thus minimising the chance of bias, and ensuring their reliability. Reviews are of two types: full reviews and protocols. Protocols are reviews “in progress”. Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects – DARE includes structured abstracts of systematic reviews. Only reviews that meet minimum quality criteria are included. These reviews cover topics that have yet to be addressed in Cochrane reviews. Central Register of Controlled Trials – CENTRAL is the world’s largest index of published clinical trials. Cochrane Database of Methodology Reviews – CMR contains full-text systematic reviews of methodological studies. Health Technology Assessment Database – HTA contains details of ongoing projects and completed publications from health technology assessment organisations. NHS Economic Evaluation Database – Contains structured abstracts of articles describing economic evaluations of health care interventions. Papers are included if they provide a comparison of treatments and examine both the costs and outcomes of the alternatives. About The Cochrane Collaboration Database – contains information on the 80 groups that make up The Cochrane Collaboration. You will find contacts and information on the aims and scope of the Cochrane Review Groups, Methods Groups, Fields, and Networks, along with details of your nearest Cochrane Centre as well as the Cochrane Editorial Unit and Cochrane Collaboration Secretariat. When do I use The Cochrane Library? When you wish to search for reliable evidence about the effectiveness of interventions, e.g. treatment; diagnosis and screening; health promotion; organisation of care You should not use the Cochrane Library to search for general healthcare questions - causal, prognosis, epidemiology, etc.; statistics (prevalence and incidence); primary research other than controlled trials; current research. How do I search for information? There are several ways of searching the Cochrane Library 1. Browsing by topic You can browse by topic starting with the list on the left hand side of the page (click on ‘Expand’ to see all topics. Click on the subjects until you get to links to individual records. There is also an A-Z listing of all protocols and reviews. Updated by N. Ager 17/09/2013 2. Simple Search Use the search box at the top left of the screen. Enter “free-text” terms (i.e. words that you think of) and click ‘Go’. E.g. asthma and child. The number of records found will be listed, with Cochrane Reviews being listed first. Browse the results and click on the title of the record you wish to view to see the full-text. If you find too many results, you could restrict to words in the title by clicking the down arrow next to ‘Title, Abstract or Keywords’ and selecting ‘Record Title’. Do not use Simple Search for complicated searches. The Advanced Search allows you to do more complex searches and gives you more control over refining results. 3. Advanced Search Click on the ‘Advanced Search’ link and the following screen will appear. When you enter your first subject, Cochrane will suggest terms you may want to use. Click on the plus button to add extra terms into your search. Once you have entered your terms, click on ‘Go’ to run the search. Click on ‘Add to Search Manager’ to use both keywords and MeSH headings in your search or to keep a temporary record of your search. Updated by N. Ager 17/09/2013 MeSH Searching MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings, the name given to the thesaurus (also called subject headings, indexing terms, or descriptors) found on the Medline database. The most effective way of searching is to use the index terms assigned to these articles in conjunction with free text searching, because you cannot guarantee that your chosen terms will appear within the abstract or title. It is best used in conjunction with free text searching carried out within Search History. For example, if you were searching for information on the use of corticosteroids for children with asthma you would search for the terms ‘corticosteroids’ and ‘asthma’, but you would also want to use the MeSH terms relating to this topic. You can access the MeSH search option from the Cochrane Library Advanced Search Page Type in your term into the left hand search box. On the right you can choose a subheading from the drop down list to make your search even more focussed (use this wisely as you may eliminate relevant searches by choosing the wrong subheading. Click on ‘Lookup’. Cochrane will show a definition of the term, Thesaurus matches (any other terms, including synonyms) that you might be interested in and it will give you the option to use the MeSH term without any more specific terms (unexploded) or to include any more specific terms, listed below (Exploded). Choose the option you wish and then ‘Add to Search Manager’. Updated by N. Ager 17/09/2013 Once you have repeated this process for each search concept you are in a position to combine your free text and MeSH searches together, or to just combine the MeSH terms together. Combine MeSH terms and the free text terms using OR and AND as appropriate. Use the # before each number. Click on the number to view results. Using a combination of free text and MeSH terms will usually provide you with a larger number of results. While this method does ensure that you don't miss anything you might find that some of the results are irrelevant. Search Tips  If you want to search for a phrase, you must enter it with quotes e.g. “colon cancer”, otherwise the words will be search as colon AND cancer, which will give many irrelevant results  Plurals are automatically searched for, so searching ‘child’ with also find ‘children’  You can truncate terms by using *. e.g. ‘depress*’ will find depression, depressive, depressed etc. You can truncate at either end of a word or in the middle, e.g. ‘*depress*’ also finds antidepressants  Some alternative spellings are automatically searched (e.g. tumour/tumor), but to be certain of catching them, use internal truncation, e.g. ‘isch*mic’ to find ischaemic or ischemic  Use brackets to control the order in which the search executes, if you are using a combination of AND and OR, e.g. ‘magnesium AND (eclampsia OR perinatal asphyxia)  NEAR can be used instead of AND to narrow your search. e.g. smoking NEAR pregnancy will find the two words within 6 words of each other in either order, so is more specific than using AND. NEAR/n will find the words within n words of each other in either order, e.g. NEAR/4.  Hyphens are treated as valid characters. To search a term that may be hyphenated, enter both alternatives, e.g. epstein-barr or epstein barr. Updated by N. Ager 17/09/2013 How do view the search results? Search results are listed by relevancy with Cochrane Reviews listed first. Click ‘Other Reviews’, ‘Clinical Trials’ etc to see the results for those databases. Browse through the titles. Browse the results and click on the title of the record you wish to view to see the fulltext. A screen will display the table of contents in the left frame and the start of the record in the right frame The easiest way to view the document is to open and save/print the PDF ‘Full’ file. N.B. Some of the reviews are very long so please check the amount of pages you will be printing before choosing to print. For further help, please contact: Tel: 0121 507 3587 E-mail: swbh.library@nhs.net Staffed Hours: Mon – Friday 8.30 – 4.30 Website: www.swbhlibrary.wordpress.com Copies of this and other useful ‘How To’ leaflets can be picked up from the Library or from our website. Call in and collect one. Updated by N. Ager 17/09/2013