Abstract
Background: Much research work in palliative care has been hard to locate. This creates difficulties for clinicians and researchers who wish to access this work.
Objective: The CareSearch project aims to capture Australia’s missing palliative care literature and make it available to practitioners, educators and researchers. Methods: Four sources of missing literature were identified. Materials relevant to palliative care are being located, evaluated and catalogued: ∑ Abstracts from Australian conferences since 1980 (N=1,781) ∑ Masters and PhD theses from
Australian universities (N=61) ∑ Abstracts of articles from 12 major palliative care journals that have not been indexed in the major electronic databases (not limited to Australia; N=410) ∑ Government documents, policy and research reports (grey literature; N=80). Access to the CareSearch library is available in a search engine at www.caresearch.com.au.
Results: Over 2,300 items have been collected. Publication rates for conference abstracts varied from 0% to 17% in individual years. Articles published in the major palliative care journals were variably indexed by journal, year and electronic resource; overall 410 palliative care articles in specialist journals were not indexed in MEDLINE or EMBASE and are included. CareSearch is a growing resource and work continues in identifying, evaluating and including material. Conclusion: Uncatalogued research in palliative care is instantly accessible
through the CareSearch library, preventing loss of this valuable body of work. A CareSearch database search is a good supplement for any literature search in palliative care; CareSearch should be expanded to other countries.
Objective: The CareSearch project aims to capture Australia’s missing palliative care literature and make it available to practitioners, educators and researchers. Methods: Four sources of missing literature were identified. Materials relevant to palliative care are being located, evaluated and catalogued: ∑ Abstracts from Australian conferences since 1980 (N=1,781) ∑ Masters and PhD theses from
Australian universities (N=61) ∑ Abstracts of articles from 12 major palliative care journals that have not been indexed in the major electronic databases (not limited to Australia; N=410) ∑ Government documents, policy and research reports (grey literature; N=80). Access to the CareSearch library is available in a search engine at www.caresearch.com.au.
Results: Over 2,300 items have been collected. Publication rates for conference abstracts varied from 0% to 17% in individual years. Articles published in the major palliative care journals were variably indexed by journal, year and electronic resource; overall 410 palliative care articles in specialist journals were not indexed in MEDLINE or EMBASE and are included. CareSearch is a growing resource and work continues in identifying, evaluating and including material. Conclusion: Uncatalogued research in palliative care is instantly accessible
through the CareSearch library, preventing loss of this valuable body of work. A CareSearch database search is a good supplement for any literature search in palliative care; CareSearch should be expanded to other countries.
Original language | English |
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Pages | 118 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Publication status | Published - 2005 |
Event | 2005 European Association of Palliative Care conference - Duration: 6 Apr 2005 → … |
Conference
Conference | 2005 European Association of Palliative Care conference |
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Period | 6/04/05 → … |
Keywords
- Palliative care
- research database
- literature database
- CareSearch