LibGuides: Pharmaceutical Sciences: Searching for information

Looking for articles on your topic?

The quickest way to find articles on a specific topic is by searching a relevant database.

The University Library subscribes to hundreds of databases, but we recommend the ones listed below as a starting point for students and researchers.

Some provide only citations for articles, so look for Article Link to connect you to the fulltext, or try one of the steps described below to access a copy.

If you need to bulk export records from a database, check these steps first.

Recommended databases for Pharmaceutical Sciences

Embase This link opens in a new window Embase (Excerpta Medica Database) is a major biomedical and pharmacological database; is especially strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research, pharmacology and toxicology. Embase adds over 1 million records annually.
Medline (Ovid) This link opens in a new window Ovid MEDLINE ® covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care.
PubMed This link opens in a new window PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature, including behavioural sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. Available to the public online since 1996, PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window The Cochrane Library, produced by the international Cochrane Collaboration, is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. Databases include the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Clinical Answers. Cochrane Library is a key resource for evidence-based medicine that integrates clinical expertise with systematic research.

SciFinder (registration) This link opens in a new window
First-time users must register at this site before accessing ScFinder.
SciFinder (from CAS) This link opens in a new window SciFinder is a research discovery tool that allows you to explore the CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) databases that contain literature from many scientific disciplines spanning the biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, materials science, and more. Search by chemical structure, research topic, author, company, substance name, or reaction.

SciFinder Quickstart Guide for Performing a Search (pdf)

SciFinder Quick Reference Guide (pdf)

CAS SciFinder Discovery Platform This link opens in a new window
CAS: Analytical Methods This link opens in a new window
CAS: Formulus This link opens in a new window

Cambridge Structural Database The CSD records bibliographic, chemical and crystallographic information for organic molecules and metal-organic compounds, whose 3D structures have been determined using X-ray diffraction and neutron diffraction.
PubPharm
PubChem PubChem is a freely accessible online database for chemical information, providing comprehensive information on various chemical entities. Search chemicals by name, molecular formula, structure, and other identifiers.
ChemIDplus A dictionary of over 400,000 chemicals (names, synonyms, and structures), linking to NLM and other databases and resources, including links to federal, state and international agencies. ChemIDplus Advanced helps users draw their own structures and perform similarity and substructure searches.

TOXINZ The TOXINZ™ Poisons Information Database is produced by the New Zealand National Poisons Centre at the University of Otago.

Toxline This link opens in a new window This database, produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, provides bibliographic citations and abstracts from the core journal literature in all areas of toxicology, including chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pesticides, environmental pollutants and mutagens and teratogens.

TOXNET As part of a broader NLM reorganization, most of NLM's toxicology information services have been integrated into other NLM products and services. Click on the Toxnet link to find out where to find the Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) and TOXLINE, for references to literature on toxicology, etc.

BMJ Best Practice This link opens in a new window A clinical decision support tool for health professionals that provides access to the latest research evidence, guidelines and expert opinion in a single source. BMJ Best Practice includes differential diagnosis tables, treatment algorithms, videos of common clinical procedures, integrated evidence from Cochrane Clinical Answers, over 250 medical calculators and more.
DynaMed This link opens in a new window DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals. It contains clinically-oriented, evidence-based summaries written by medical experts for point-of-care use by physicians, and other health care professionals.
Cochrane Clinical Answers (CCA) This link opens in a new window (Open access. Wiley interface) CCA provides a readable, digestible, clinically focused entry point to rigorous research from Cochrane systematic reviews. The content is designed to be actionable and to inform decision making at the point of care.

TRIP Database This link opens in a new window A clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice.

MedNar.com Excellent grey literature search engine. Try the Visual tab's infographic which categorises results.

Scopus This link opens in a new window Multidisciplinary sciences coverage. Incorporates the ScienceDirect e-journals collection; 1960+
Web of Science This link opens in a new window Search across Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS Citation Index, Current Contents Connect, Inspec, and Zoological Record.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window A leading database covering: business, law, education, computing, science, technology, engineering, arts, medicine

More specialist resources for Pharmaceutical Sciences

AccessPharmacy This link opens in a new window
AccessPharmacy is an online curricular resource designed for pharmacy education. Users may select a core curriculum topic, browse by organ system, review textbooks, and search across leading, current pharmacy online references. Among the titles are Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach; Pharmacotherapy Casebook: A Patient-Focused Approach; Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics; Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine.
Merck Index Online This link opens in a new window
Source of information on chemicals, drugs and biologicals.

Critical Appraisal Checklists

Critical appraisal skills enable you to systematically assess the trustworthiness, relevance, quality and consistency of results in published papers. Select the critical appraisal checklist matching the research paper's study design, from these sites:

More health sciences databases

Assess your findings

Evaluating and thinking critically about sources of information are important skills to develop and apply while undertaking research.

Not all information is reliable and appropriate for academic work, and not all information is relevant to your particular topic.

You should challenge and reflect on information that you find; don’t just accept everything you read.

Rauru Whakarare Evaluation Framework

Assess sources, based on:
OROKOHANGA - ‘The Origins’: The source of the information
MANA - ‘The Authority’ of the information
WHAKAPAPA - ‘The Background’ of the information
MĀRAMATANGA - ‘The Content’ and usability of the
information
ARONGA - ‘The Lens’ or objectivity of the information

Tutorial link

Work through this tutorial to develop your skills in evaluating information that you find online:

SIFT - Evaluating Information Tutorial

Even though the library databases are good sources of information, we still need to evaluate that information before we decide to use it. You can do this by asking the following questions:

Is the information relevant to your topic?
Who are the authors, are they experts in the field? Who do they work for? What else have they written?
What evidence is given, what references are given, and what methodology is used?
How is the study funded? Is there a bias?
When was the information written, is it still relevant? Has it been updated or amended in light of new evidence?

How to evaluate websites

Use the acronym BADURL to help you evaluate online sources:
B ... Bias
A ... Authority
D ... Date
U ... URL
R ... Relevance
L ... Links

Work through this tutorial to develop your skills in evaluating information that you find online:

TRAAP Test

Or apply these terms to assess if the information you have found answers your research question.

Timeliness

Relevance

Authority

Accuracy

Purpose

Download the TRAAP Test Questions

Here are some resources to help develop your evaluating skills:

For a simple 'commonsense' approach to evaluating claims made by the news media, read this short article by Doug Specht & Julio Gimenez from the University of Westminster, and pay close attention to the 6 'steps for reading like a scientist'.
If you need to verify a claim, you can check it on a fact-checking website. Check out this guide to Fact Checkers, curated by the University of California Berkley Library, for ideas on what websites to use if you are not sure.
Work through this excellent module on 'evaluating information and critical thinking' created by The University of Sheffield Library.
Check out this fun, short, easy game, created by a Canadian civics charity organisation 'CIVIX'. The game is designed to improve your verifying sources skills, by teaching you tricks for checking a claim, a source and an image: FAKEOUT

Finding Information

Try these steps:

Analyse a topic and develop a search strategy to find relevant information

Identify the main resources for information used in academic study

Use search techniques to effectively find information in these resources

If the article you need is not online...

Try these options:

Library Search | Ketu This link opens in a new window
1. Search the article title as may still subscribe to the journal title
2. Search the journal title to see if Otago holds the hard copy of the issue you need.

Interloans
If Otago does not hold the issue in hard copy, submit an Interloans request for the article. Staff will try to get the article for you from another Library. Article requests are free.

Tutorials

PubMed tutorials

A range of tutorials from the National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Otago's PubMed tutorial
PubMed: find articles on a topic (1 min)
PubMed Subject search (4 mins)
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in PubMed/Medline: a tutorial

OVID offers a range of training videos at https://tools.ovid.com/ovidtools/videos.html e.g.

MEDLINE (18:11 min)

Ovid TermFinder (3:55 min)

Advanced Search: Keyword Searching (3:58 min)

Advanced Search: Mapping (4:32 min)

Managing Search Results (8:47 min)

Refining Search Strategy with Limits (2:59 min)

Embase (24:39 min)

Check out these tutorials to help you get the most out of searching these clinical resources:

These Otago tutorials are designed to provide a basic introduction to searching the databases.

Keep up to date

Set up alerts to authors, search topics, journal articles, books, chapters, journal table of contents, and combinations of these.

Use the database functions once registered for an account or profile. More tips in our Keeping up-to-date with research guide.