Ken - what you suggest is a good idea. You could also consider other 'open access' clinical sites. In particular, I would suggest PubMed. With much of its content, full-article access is possible - and abstract/summary info for all articles.

Although collaboration is possible, it might also be a good idea to look for funds for the institute to start subscriptions to major publications and databases. Usually academic institutes need to set aside funds for such purposes if they want quality publications from their students.

Dean, thank you for taking time out to reply. My concern with using Pubmed rather than Medline is that we miss out on some potential studies. Your answer prompted me to investigate what the difference between PubMed and Medline consisted, and I found the following explanation which you may find useful.

Pubmed is an interface used to search Medline, as well as additional biomedical content. Ovid Medline is an interface for searching only Medline content. Pubmed is more user-friendly and allows you to search through more content than Ovid Medline. However,  Ovid Medline allows you to perform a more focused search. You will get slightly different results by searching in each database.

In Pubmed, in addition to Medline articles, you will have access to PubMedCentral papers, which are full text articles deposited to promote open access, and articles that are “in process” that is, prior to being indexed with MeSH terms, and articles submitted by publishers, “ahead of print.” This is why if you search for the same term in Medline and in Pubmed, you may obtain as many as ten thousand more articles in Pubmed.

Here is the link to the National Library of Medicine’s page with a much more complete explanation of how Medline, Pubmed and PubMedCentral are different: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dif_med_pub.html

Before you give up on searching Ovid Medline, here is why you may want to use it for certain searches.

All Medline articles have been indexed with assigned MeSH terms. If you have a specific search you are doing you will get the closest, most specific match to your terms by searching in Medline. This is why it is good to perform your search in more than one database.

I know as well that searching CINAHL is more likely to find Nursing related results.

So the next question to ask is how do we decide how many or how little databases to search to be confident that we are not missing important RCT's for a systematic review and meta-analysis?

Ken

Ranjan, thanks for taking time out to answer my question. I agree with your answer and together with the reply from Dean it has prompted me to question

'How we know how many databases are sufficient to ensure an important RCT is not missed'. In an ideal world we would just use the free database Pubmed!! A Cochrane review appears to request searching all major databases, while other systematic Literature Reviews vary on the different databases searched.

This is important to not waste time duplicating searches and also where an Institution does not have access to many databases it allows systematic literature reviews take place with confidence.

Ken

Kenneth have you discussed this with your college librarian? I have worked in two ITs in Ireland and had moderate journal access and the librarian could usually get other articles I needed from elsewhere. If you or any of your students are graduates of most universities they can often avail of on-line access through that university. There is also the HSE library system for those in a health field and their librarians are generally very helpful.

Genevieve, thank you so much for taking time out to answer my question and I will explore those avenues that you suggested. The idea of contacting the Universities from where the students graduated is excellent and Sligo University Hospital also has an excellent research Foundation where their librarian has been very helpful in the past. I'm not sure where you are located but certainly good luck with your company (BEST) and I know that one of my colleagues in our Clinical Health and Nutrition Centre is currently working on an infant feeding PhD project so would certainly be interested in meeting you if you are ever in Sligo. We have been known to treat our guests to coffee!!! Thanks again Ken