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Physiotherapy Subject Guide

This subject guide will support you in finding and using the resources needed throughout your degree in Physiotherapy.

Selecting and accessing the databases

These research databases are recommended for Physiotherapy:

Cinahl - Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Primarily concerned with nursing, but approximately 35% of articles are related to allied health disciplines.

Amed - Allied and Complementary Medicine Database. Bibliographic database produced by British Library. Covers a selection of journals in complementary medicine, palliative care, and several professions allied to medicine.

Medline - From US National Library of Medicine. Covers clinical medicine, including the allied health fields. Includes biological and physical sciences and humanities where they relate to health care.

MAH collection - The MAH Complete collection is a searchable collection of full text journals covering nursing, midwifery, and allied health - with access to over 65,000 articles across over 30 peer-reviewed titles. The collection is made up of several sub-collections: Internurse, Intermid, and Health Professionals.

BNI - Nursing and midwifery database mainly indexing journals published in the UK, plus other English-language journals including international nursing and midwifery journals. Also indexes selective content from medical, allied health and management journals.

Assia - This database is designed to meet the information needs of the caring professions, and spans the literature of health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. The database abstracts and indexes over 500 journals, from more than 16 countries.

PsycInfo - Compiled by the American Psychological Association. Contains relevant material from medicine, psychiatry, social work, law, criminology, social science and organisational behaviour.

Some resources for systematic reviews/evidence based medicine:

Cochrane Library - Consists of several databases supporting evidence-based medicine, including: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, NHS EED (NHS Economic Evaluation Database) and HTA (Health Technology Assessments). The Library has developed a Cochrane Library search guide.

Pedro - Physiotherapy Evidence Database. Bibliographic details and abstracts of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy.

Guidelines in practice and other resources:

NICE (Nice Institute for Health and Care Excellence) - Search the NICE website for access to NICE Guidelines, Clinical Knowledge Summaries, and NICE provided resources such as the BNF and BNFC.

Rehabdata - REHABDATA describes over 80,000 documents covering physical, mental, and psychiatric disabilities, independent living, vocational rehabilitation, special education, assistive technology, law, employment, and other issues as they relate to people with disabilities.

King's Fund Library Database - Covers the policy and management of health and social care services - 1979 to present, and King's Fund publications from 1906 onwards.

There are three main companies that provide most of the Library's databases, which means that certain databases have the same look and feel

Databases provided by Ebsco include Cinahl, Medline and Amed - see our Ebsco Search Guide for more information

Databases provided by Ovid include PsycInfo and Embase - see our Ovid Search Guide for more information

Databases provided by Proquest include Assia and BNI (British Nursing Index)

Click here for a wider list of recommended databases for physiotherapy and other allied health professions in our Allied Health list

We have lists for a range of other areas that may be relevant such as mental health, evidence based healthcare, grey literature and health management/policy.  All of these lists, including Allied Health, can be selected from the drop down menu on the Library's Databases A-Z page. You can also access a range of anatomy and multimedia resources and recommended websites from this page.

Accessing resources offsite

This video demonstrates how to access SGUL resources when you are offsite.  You need your SGUL username and password. Your SGUL username begins with the letter 'm' followed by a number.

Guides and videos for database searching

You can find advice and demonstrations on searching a range of databases in the Library Canvas module here