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Ovid databases guide

Most of imperials medical databases are run by ovid. This libguide will show you how to search them.

Introduction to Ovid databases

Ovid is the platform for most of our health databases. Although all the databases look the same they have different focuses and subject headings. You need to search them individually or you will not be able to search for the subject headings. 

The Ovid databases

Covers the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine and the preclinical sciences. It is updated daily and gives access to over 23 million of the latest bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 5,600 biomedicine and life sciences journals in nearly 40 languages (60 languages for older journals). 

PubMed basically is Medline (about 95% of PubMed is Medline.) Our subscription to Ovid Medline includes ‘PubMed-not-MEDLINE’ records from NLM, which means that it essentially contains the same information as PubMed. If there are differences then it would be due to the update schedule although, according to the Ovid Medline database guide, ‘Ovid receives records from NLM on a daily basis.’

The reason we subscribe to the Ovid version rather than just using free PubMed is because:

  • You can do a more specific search within Ovid. PubMed will try to second guess what you are searching for (if you click on your search in the advanced section you can see what has actually been searched).
  • Ovid will suggest the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) rather than you having to find them in the second database.
  • It is much easier to export in bulk to reference management software.
  • If you are doing an evidence synthesis review you will have to learn Ovid for Embase as a minimum extra database so it will make things easier to only need to learn one platform for most of our health databases.

The largest health database. Embase covers a wide variety of biomedical subjects and literature related to the pharmacological effects of drugs and chemicals. Includes journals from Europe and Asia not found in other biomedical databases.

Embase adds approximately two million records annually. The original Embase part of the databases contains around 30 million records, spanning from 1974 to present, from 6,100 journals. The MEDLINE supplement contains around 10 million records from 2,400 journals, with unique records from MEDLINE.

  • Weekly updates average close to 40,000 new records and approximately 25 to 30,000 records are updated each week
  • Records that enter the database as Article in-Press will be overwritten by In-Process status records and will complete indexing as status Embase or status MEDLINE records
  • Status Embase records (fully-indexed) will average 20,000 records per week, complemented with approximately 10,000 NLM supplied records per week
  • In addition, Elsevier processed around 300,000 conference records over the past years, an average of 6,000 records per week
  • Starting November 2021 Elsevier also started to add preprint status records to Embase from MedRxiv and BioXriv, that averages around 1000 per week

Global Health covers all aspects of public health at both international and community level, as well as material from other biomedical and life science fields.  Derived from over 7,300 journals, reports, books and conferences the database has over three million records. Publications from over 100 countries in 50 languages are abstracted, and all relevant non-English-language papers are translated to give access to research not available through any other database. 40% of material contained in Global Health is unique to the database.

Access for Imperial staff and students is restricted to 5 simultaneous users.

Abstracts centered on psychology and the behavioural and social sciences with references to journal articles, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations. This is a useful database to search for those researching psychiatry, sociology and education.

Journal coverage, spanning 1806 to present, includes international material selected from more than 2,500 periodicals from more than 49 countries written in 29 languages. Current chapter and book coverage includes worldwide English-language material published from 1987 to present. Over 80,000 records are added annually through weekly updates. More than 36 million references in over 870,000 journal articles, books, and book chapters. Retrospective to 2001 and earlier, where available. More than 3.2 million references from 1920 to 2000.

Contains over 300,000 references to journal articles from over 400 international English language journals, books and grey literature sources relating to pregnancy, labour, birth, postnatal care and neonatal care and the first year of an infant's life. Maternity and Infant Care is now updated weekly, with around 250 new records added each week.

Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) is a database based on the libraries of the King's Fund and the Department of Health's Library and Information Services (DH-Data). It covers health and social care management information including service development and NHS organisation and administration, health service policy, medical equipment and supplies and other related areas.

DH Data is the database of the Department of Health's Library and Information Services and contains in excess of 174,000 records relating to health and social care management information. Coverage includes official publications, journal articles and grey literature on health service policy, management and administration. The majority of records are from 1983 onwards, although coverage of departmental materials dates back to 1919. 

The King’s Fund Information and Library Service database holds records of the material in the library of the King’s Fund Information and Library Service, an independent health charity working to develop and improve the management of health and social care services. Its database contains over 70,000 records (1979 to date).