We, the people from underdeveloped countries, wouldn't be able to afford many of databases for research. Our sources are free website/s only. In such circumstances, will we be able to complete large-scale research works, like systematic review and meta analyses?
They can participate with researchers from other country.
Approach your institute for access to major databases. Interpret your results cautiously considering the availability of data.
Unfotunitly,,,it will be difficult to do systematic review with limited resources. The suggestion to work with colleagues who have access could be one option
Hi Bishal,
Interesting and pertinent query. Most researchers from the developing countries face this situation on a regular basis. But that should not prevent us from doing systematic reviews.
Some of the following points might help:
1. EMBASE is usually not available in most institutions. One of the ways to overcome is to search COCHRANE CENTRAL (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cochranelibrary/search?searchRow.searchOptions.searchProducts=clinicalTrialsDoi), a central register of controlled trials from the Cochrane library. This includes all the trials that are published in the journals included in EMBASE as well.
This will solve the problem to a great extent for interventional studies (trials) but the issue will remain for the observational studies.
2. The second source is CAB Global Health/CAB Direct (https://www.cabdirect.org). This is an extensive resource of literature in the applied life sciences. You can get 1-day access for 20 GBP and 1-week access for 40 GBP. You can finalise the search strategy and then get 1-day access and complete and save the search.
3. The third option is to search the World Health Organization's library online catalogue (WHOLIS - http://www.who.int/library/databases/en/) and the regional/country databases.
4. The fourth option is take help from the relevant Cochrane review groups. They will help if it is a Cochrane review and might possibly help for a non-Cochrane review (depending upon the resources available).
5. The last option is to request your friends/colleagues working in the West to do the search and send you the results (as mentioned by others in their responses).
You might try these options to circumvent the lack of access to most databases.
I hope it helps...
Jeeva
Thank you everyone who have given such an elaborative support to my query.
I will take your suggestions in account.
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