MEDLINE

MEDLINE (MEDlars onLINE) is the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. The MEDLINE file contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from over 4,000 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 foreign countries. The file contains over 12 million records dating back to the mid-1960s.  Coverage is worldwide, but most records are from English-language sources or have English abstracts.

Access to MEDLINE is available from many sources, including Ovid and PubMed.

Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews

Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
This bibliographic database contains over 300,000 bibliographic references to definitive controlled healthcare trials identified by the Cochrane Collaboration. 
Available in the Cochrane Library

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international network committed to preparing, maintaining, and disseminating systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare. Full text of Complete Reviews and Protocols available.
Available in the Cochrane Library

Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE)
This database provides full text structured abstracts critiquing systematic reviews from all over the world. Prepared by experts at the National Health Services' Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) at the University of York, England.
Available from the NHS, and in the Cochrane Library

Essential Evidence Plus

Essential Evidence Plus is a source of evidence-based information for clinicians. It includes: a POEMS (Patient Oriented Evidence that Matters) library, Cochrane Database abstracts, collections of clinical decision rules, diagnostic tests, history and physical exam maneuvers, and drug information, as well as ICD9 and E/M coding assistants. Content is downloadable for use with PocketPC and PalmOS handheld devices.

Ovid

The UMDNJ Libraries subscribe to Ovid as an interface to MEDLINE and several other databases.  It is available to users on the UMDNJ and Cooper networks and to UMDNJ proxy server users.  For some quick tips on using Ovid, check Ovid Essentials for Evidence Based Medicine.

Can't Access the UMDNJ Resources?

At times you may be at a location where you cannot use the UMDNJ proxy server.  In this cases, you can still search MEDLINE via PubMed.  You can also identify and view abstracts from the Cochrane Database, DARE, or NHS EED.

PubMed (Public Access to PubMed)

The National Library of Medicine provides PubMed as a freely available interface to MEDLINE.  The database does include links to full text articles, but most of them are available only if you are at a site, such as UMDNJ, that has a subscription.  However, you will be able to retrieve an article if:

• it is part of PubMed Central
• it is provided for free by the publisher at its site
• you are at a site that has a subscription

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (Search the CRD databases)

The NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination provides access to three databases that can be searched together or selectively: 

• DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects) - provides structured abstracts of reviewed articles.  If you limit your search to Cochrane Reviews, you can retrieve abstracts of the reviews. 
• NHS EED (NHS Economic Evaluation Database) - critical abstracts of studies comparing interventions or care alternatives.
• HTA Database - focuses on worldwide health technology assessments. The records are not critically assessessed, but may contain links to relevant abstracts in DARE or NHS EED.