Information Skills for Health

Discover evidence faster with OvidGO! From Ovid: Wildfires continue to affect communities, placing significant demands on healthcare professionals, emergency responders, researchers, and public health teams. Search strategies are available through OvidGO! to help healthcare and research professionals quickly access relevant literature and evidence when it is needed most. Whether supporting emergency response efforts, public health initiatives, clinical care, or academic research, these resources can help teams make informed, evidence-based decisions. Smoke Inhalation Explore evidence on the health impacts of smoke exposure, respiratory complications, and clinical management. Access Search Strategy Burns, Fire, Wildfire & Mass-Casualty Disasters Find research and guidance related to burn injuries, emergency response, and disaster preparedness. Access Search Strategy Responder Safety Support the health and safety of firefighters, healthcare workers, and emergency response teams. Acce...

 Want to make sure you are getting the best evidence? Do you need a quick refresh of your literature searching skills? We have just the thing to give you a quick reminder of the steps to follow to make sure you get all the great evidence you need. Try our quick Literature Searching Flashcards tutorial . You'll go through all the steps - can you remember them? Then download your own plan to complete at the end. Let us know what you thought of our etutorial - please complete our feedback form . Go to our Information Skills etutorials page for more tutorials to help you to develop your searching skills.

 A message from nhse regarding the impact of the US gov shutdown on pubmed and medline: -------------- If you have visited a US government funded website in the past few days, you may have noticed a warning like this: "Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit  cc.nih.gov . Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at  opm.gov ." What does this mean for NHS users? If you subscribe to auto-alerts from PubMed or Medline (from either of our commercial suppliers, Ovid or EBSCO), you may notice that you don’t receive any new records for a couple of weeks. If the shut-down lasts for longer than anticipate...

  Do you need to answer a question?   When you need an answer to a healthcare question you need to find out what information already exists about it ; s o that you have the background information and latest research . Whether it is for an assignment, dissertation, research, audit or other w ork you need to complete a literature search to get the latest information and best evidenc e to answer your question .   Complete a literature search plan   How do you start your literature search? Star t with a plan. Make a literature search plan to help you to focus your search, be systematic and keep a record in case you want to repeat it.   How can the Health Library help you?   Information Skills etutorials   Develop your information searching skills by completing our short , enga ging etutorials . Read presentations, complete quizzes and watch videos to learn the essential skills to finding information efficiently and effectively.   Start off with...

Start to develop your literature searching skills; follow these easy steps to improve your searching.  I have updated the tabs for this blog. Check the new Literature Searching tab (above) to learn how to conduct a literature search to find the information you need for your studies, research, work and patient care. You'll find all the steps listed along with links to blog posts and etutorials to help you to develop your skills.

 Make sure you are ready to start your dissertation by first learning how to conduct a successful literature search. Follow these steps to get the rights skills so you get the right evidence. Do you need a comprehensive introduction to literature searching? Complete our etutorial. Let Rhonda take you through the steps to create your literature search plan. Options within the literature searching tutorial Feeling confident already? Check our literature searching flashcards to make sure you’re comfortable with all the steps to follow. Can you identify all the steps? example of a literature searching flashcard Want help to get started with your question? Use these tutorials and tools to help you to identify your question and complete your literature search more effectively; complete the relevant worksheet to help you to breakdown your question: Identify your question - learn how to breakdown your question to help you to identify the information you need Using PI...

 You can access a wealth of healthcare-based resources as well as a range of specialist services from the Health Library website.  These are specially developed to support your studies, research, work and professional development. Specialist support from our librarians will get you straight to the information you need. Go to the Specialist Support section of our website. Here your find: Specialist support web page screen-shot Inter-Library Loan Service – this service will help you to get to information sources which are not covered by our subscriptions. We will try to borrow or copy the relevant items from another library on your behalf. Literature Search Service – request a literature search and one of our experienced librarians will do the search for you. You’ll receive a report including a list of the articles and research we have found for your topic. Complete the online form to make a request. NHS Outreach Service – users working for the Staffordshire ICB or...

 Communicating your work or research is an important aspect of literature searching. An academic poster offers you an opportunity to share your work in a concise and visually appealing way.  Complete our presentation How to create and academic poster for tips to help you to create your own poster. You'll learn: What an academic poster is Why you will want one Defining your audience Design tools to use and more For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library

 What is the point of referencing and how serious is plagiarism? Complete our tutorial Introduction to Referencing and Plagiarism to find out. For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library

 Are you completing a literature search and want to make sure the articles you use are good quality? Then make sure you check what tools will help you to critically appraise the articles you find. Complete our updated tutorial Critical Appraisal Tools For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library

  There is a wealth of information available via NHS-subscribed specialist databases. But which do you need? Cinahl? Psychinfo? Medline? Emcare? Embase? And where can you access them from? Take this quick interactive tutorial Which NHS database do you need? to get a recommended list. For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library

 Check the filter options in any of the resources you use to find articles. Filters can help you to focus your search results and avoid looking at irrelevant material. Complete our new etutorial Applying Filters to Focus Results to learn how to use filters and improve your literature searching. For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library

 Boolean operators are essential for helping you to focus your searches. Use the boolean operators AND, OR and NOT to  improve your searching and only focus on the topics you need. Complete our etutorial Combining Searches with Boolean Operators to learn how to use  AND, OR and NOT to combine search terms. For more help with literature searching: Take a look at  more etutorials Book a training session Contact the Health Library