Although these questions are common, they are not always easy to answer. Medical knowledge is advancing rapidly, and the literature where new findings are reported is expanding by almost half a million articles every year.
In the past the clinician might try to answer these questions with a textbook. The problem is that textbooks are updated infrequently, on the order of every 3-5 years. A new definitive study could have been published recently and would not appear in most textbooks.
The clinician might consider calling an infectious disease specialist. But specialists are usually very busy and may not have time to answer such questions. The clinician might consider performing a traditional search in a medical database, such as MEDLINE. Unfortunately, a search using the MeSH term "common cold" yields over 1,400 articles written in the last 30 years. Finding a relevant article might take 20-30 minutes.
But today, with Ovid's Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR), answering clinical questions is a whole lot easier. Enter into Ovid's MEDLINE the term "common cold," click the EBM Reviews limit, and in seconds a small number of high-quality articles appear that discuss prevention and treatment of the common cold.
Some of the retrieved articles are those that have met rigorous inclusion criteria by the international Cochrane Collaboration and then have been used as the basis for a systematic topic review. Clicking on the "topic review" link retrieves the Cochrane Review "Vitamin C for the common cold," which reviews, analyzes, and synthesizes over 30 of the best clinical trials on the subject.
The other articles in the result set are ones that have been the subject of an evidence-based article review by the editorial staff of Best Evidence or by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York. Clicking on the "article review" link retrieves the enhanced abstract of the article together with a commentary about the article's relevance to clinical practice.
The result from using EBMR? The answer is found in less than a minute: vitamin C is not effective in preventing the common cold but can slightly reduce the length of symptoms once you develop a cold. EBMR helps clinicians find the best answer to clinical questions in the least amount of time.
DARE is a Full Text database containing critical assessments of systematic reviews from a variety of medical journals. DARE is produced by the Cochrane Collaboration-an international non-profit organization which prepares, maintains, and promotes the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions.
DARE consists of structured abstracts of systematic reviews from all over the world. These reviews have been critically appraised by an expert group of reviewers at the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York, England. DARE records cover topics such as diagnosis, prevention, rehabilitation, screening, and treatment. Every word of the document text in DARE is searchable, including references. "Searching the DARE Fields" describes all of the searchable fields and provides at least one search example for each. Within the Full Text display, hypertext features allow you to display an outline of the document and move immediately to a selected section, and to display complete references cited within the text of a document.
Full Text links in the references allow you to explore the evidence in the primary source. Full Text references link you to other full text documents within the database, as well as to bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE. Bi-directional linking allows you to link from MEDLINE to documents in the same collection or to journals available in Ovid Full Text.
Bi-directional links exist between MEDLINE and DARE. You can link from a source article reference in DARE to its associated MEDLINE citation, or click on a citation in MEDLINE and link to an article review in DARE.
Multi-directional links exist between DARE and Ovid Full Text. You can move from source article references in a DARE document to the corresponding Ovid Full Text document, allowing exploration of the evidence in the primary source.
Diagnosis
A limit to Diagnosis restricts retrieval to documents that have to do with diagnosis.
Prevention
Select this limit to restrict your retrieval to prevention.
Treatment
Select this limit to restrict your retrieval to treatments.
New Reviews
A limit to New Reviews will restrict retrieval to documents that have been added to the database
since the last update.
Recently Updated Reviews
A limit to Recently Updated Reviews restricts retrieval to documents that have been significantly
modified since the last update of the database.
Dissemination
A limit to Dissemination restricts retrieval to records that have a publication type of
"Dissemination."
Immunisation
A limit to Immunisation restricts retrieval to records that have to do with immunisation.
Rehabilitation
A limit to Rehabilitation restricts retrieval to records dealing with rehabilitation.
Screening
A limit to Screening restricts retrieval to records about screening.
Miscellaneous
A limit to Miscellaneous will restrict retrieval to records that have a publication type of
"Miscellaneous." Records that do not fall into any of the other 7 publication type categories
(Diagnosis, Prevention, Treatment, Dissemination, Immunisation, Rehabilitation, or Screening)
are classified as miscellaneous.
Popular Command and Sentence Syntax Limits:
New Reviews: limit 1 to new reviews Recently Updated Reviews: limit 1 to recently updated reviews Publication Types Sentence Syntax: limit 1 to screening limit 1 to treatment limit 1 to prevention
Default Fields for Unqualified Searches TI, KW, TX All Display/Print/Save Fields AN, AU, IN, TI, SO, SR, LM, KW, PT, DR, RF, EN Default Display/Print/Save Fields AN, AU, IN, TI, SO, SR, PT Elements of SO (Source) Field JN, IP, YR
===== ============ Label Name/Example ===== ============The Accession Number (AN) field contains a 22-digit number that uniquely identifies each document in the database. When searching this field, include all leading zeros and internal hyphens. The Accession Number is not related to the 8-digit MEDLINE Unique Identifier.AN Accession Number [Phrase Indexed]
00125498-100000000-00042.an.
AY Reviewed Article Author [Phrase Indexed]The Reviewed Article Author (AY) field contains the names of all the authors of the article or study being reviewed.
smith$.ay. reynolds l.ay.
DO Reviewed Article Date of Publication [Word Indexed]The Reviewed Article Date of Publication (DO) field contains the year of publication for the article or study being reviewed.
"1999".do.
DP Date of Publication [Word Indexed]The Date of Publication (DP) field contains the month and year in which the DARE record was published.
january.dp.
DR Date of Most Recent Amendment [Word Indexed]The Date of Most Recent Amendment (DR) field contains the month, year, and possibly the day that the DARE record was last updated.
05-31-1999.dr.
"1999".dr.
DV Reviewed Article Volume [Phrase Indexed]The Reviewed Article Volume (DV) field contains the volume number of the printed journal in which the article being reviewed was published. This field displays as part of the Reviewed Source field (SR).
"10".dv.
EN External Accession Number [Phrase Indexed]The External Accession Number (EN) field contains a 6-digit number which uniquely identifies each document in the Cochrane Library database. Each 6-digit number is preceded by the letters "DARE". The External Accession Number is not related to the Ovid accession number or to the MEDLINE Unique Identifier.
dare 988592.en.
GO Reviewed Article Pagination [Phrase Indexed]The Reviewed Article Pagination (GO) field contains the starting page number of the reviewed article in the printed journal in which it was published. This field displays as part of the Reviewed Source field (SR).
103.go.
KW Keyword [Word Indexed]The Keywords (KW) field contains subject heading words used to describe the content of DARE records. Some subject headings are assigned by NLM and others are assigned by the Center for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD). The assigning body is noted in each record.
heart surgery.kw.
PO Reviewed Article Issue/Part [Word Indexed]The Reviewed Article Issue/Part (PO) field includes the issue and supplement number in which the reviewed article was published. This field displays as part of the Reviewed Source (SR) field.
120.po.
*PT Publication Type [Phrase Indexed]The Publication Type (PT) field describes a document's overall form and substance in broad categories. The DARE database contains the following publication types: Diagnosis, Dissemination, Immunization, Prevention, Rehabilitation, Screening, Treatment, and Miscellaneous.
rehabilitation.pt.
RF References [Word Indexed]The References (RF) field includes complete bibliographic citations for publications cited in full text documents by the author. These references can be viewed along with the citation or with full text. When available, references in the full text document contain links to bibliographic and full text records.
lancet.rf. hillner b e.rf. hillner$.rf
RW Reviewed Article Journal Words [Word Indexed]The Reviewed Article Journal Words (RW) field contains individual words from every journal in which a reviewed article was published.
england.rw
SJ Reviewed Article Journal Name [Phrase Indexed]The Reviewed Article Journal Name (SJ) field contains the full name of the journal in which the article being reviewed was published.
acta radiologica.sj.
SR Reviewed Source [Word Indexed]The Reviewed Source (SR) field includes the complete bibliographic citation for the publication being reviewed. These references can be viewed with the citation or with the full text.
harvard.sr.
TI Title [Word Indexed]The Title (TI) field contains the title of the DARE record, which generally corresponds to the title of the Reviewed Source, as well.
cancer.ti.
TO Reviewed Article Title [Word Indexed]The Reviewed Article Title (TO) field contains the title of the article being reviewed. Stopwords such as "of" or "the" will display in documents but do not appear in the title index. However, the word "a" (which is a stopword in other fields) can be searched in the Reviewed Article Title field.
neonat$.to.
TW Text Word [Word Indexed]The Text Word (TW) field is ideal for broad retrieval of an author's specialized terminology. Searches in this field are conducted simultaneously in the Title (TI), Keyword (KW), and Full Text (TX) fields.
neuroleptic.tw.
TX Full Text [Word Indexed]The Full Text (TX) field contains the complete document text. This field allows you to retrieve all documents with even the most passing mention of your search term. Since this field contains such a large quantity of diverse information, most searches for a specific subject will result in retrieval of higher relevance if conducted in the Title (TI) or Keywords (KW) fields.
angioplasty.tx. heart attack.tx.
Command Syntax: ..c/dare Sentence Syntax: use dare
The materials contained herein are proprietary to the publishers and/or individual copyright holders and may only be used by authorized users of the subscribing institutions for internal or personal research. Authorized users may (i) print data obtained from searches and make limited copies of such printed search results, (ii) download data obtained from searches and (iii) retransmit search results electronically or otherwise to a limited number of authorized users at the same institution. Authorized users are precluded from: (i) copying, duplication, redistribution, retransmission, publication, transfer or commercial or other exploitation of the databases or the contents thereof, except as permitted herein or pursuant to user guidelines of the individual copyright holders, (ii) preparation of derivative works or incorporation of the databases or contents thereof in any other work or system; (iii) downloading of the contents in their entirety or lengthy sequence. Authorized users are referred to the individual copyright holder and/or to the copyright holder's usage guidelines within this database for additional restrictions which may be imposed by the copyright holder.