CareSearch: A literature and research database for palliative care

David Currow, Amy Abernethy, Belinda Fazekas, Jennifer Tieman

    Research output: Contribution to conferencePosterpeer-review

    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.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages118
    Number of pages1
    Publication statusPublished - 2005
    Event2005 European Association of Palliative Care conference -
    Duration: 6 Apr 2005 → …

    Conference

    Conference2005 European Association of Palliative Care conference
    Period6/04/05 → …

    Keywords

    • Palliative care
    • research database
    • literature database
    • CareSearch

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