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Subject Resources for Health and Social Care, Nursing, Midwifery, Operating Department Practitioner and Paramedic

The collections provided below are electronic resources (eResources) and give you instant access to high-quality scholarly research through journal articles and databases. You can access these eResources 24/7 and each collection has its own to help pages to guide you through accessing and navigating the resources. If you need any additional support to develop your information literacy and research skills please visit the Further help and support tab.

Key journals and databases

  • Anatomy TV provides 3D models and illustrations of human anatomy.
  • Biomed Central Journals is a Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) publisher of 220 open access, online, peer-reviewed journals and the portfolio of journals spans all areas of biology and medicine.
  • BMJ Best Practice is a clinical decision support tool that offers a step-by-step approach to help manage patient diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention.
    • You usually need to login for the first time either through a university PC or on a mobile or laptop connected to Eduroam.
    • When you first access BMJ Best Practice you will be prompted to create an account.
    • Once you have created an account with your university email address you will be able to get access off site.
    • Once you have an account you can download an app for use on or off campus.
    • Further information on creating an account is available in the BMJ Best Practice User Guide.
  • BMJ Journals is a collection of more than 70 medical and allied science titles. They are published by BMJ, the global healthcare knowledge provider and pioneer in the development of open access.
  • British Psychological Society provides access to a range of psychology journals including the British Journal of Psychology.
  • CINAHL Complete provides access to top nursing and allied health journals, evidence-based care sheets and quick lessons providing overviews of disease and conditions.
  • Clinical Key is a clinical based resource that contains a large number of eBooks, images and videos. You need to create an account to use Clinical Key and to use the personalisation features. It is divided into three collections:
  • Clinical Skills: The Faculty of Health, Social Care and Medicine subscribe to the resource Clinical Skills for Nursing, Midwifery, Paramedic and ODP students and will provide those students needing access with an individual login. Please contact [email protected] with any support needs.
  • Cochrane Library contains 6 databases all of which are searched simultaneously: Includes research on the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of healthcare interventions. Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, cost-effectiveness and randomised controlled trial research studies are included within the Cochrane Library. A user guide, videos and webinar recordings are available from the Cochrane Library Training Hub.
  • Emerald Insight contains a collection of journals for professionals and practitioners in the areas of health and social care, learning disabilities, children’s services, mental health and community.
  • Health Research Premium Collection contains over 800 full-text nursing and health journals which cover nursing, allied health, alternative and complementary medicine and consumer health.
  • Intermid is a specialised collection of journal articles from British Journal of Midwifery and African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health. This collection is full text.
  • Internurse is a collection of 18 full text journals covering nursing, nurse prescribing, children’s, mental health, community and palliative care nursing.
  • MEDLINE contains citations and abstracts from over 5200 biomedical journals and has been created by the United States National Library of Medicine.
  • Nursing Times is a professional magazine which supports nurses and healthcare professionals in their career development. Peer-reviewed articles help you to improve your practice, and keep up to date with news on nursing, healthcare policy and practice. Our subscription also includes access to the CPD modules. You can create an account using your University email address and a password of your choosing at nursingtimes.net/subs-offers/edge-hill-university.
  • PsycARTICLES provides access to full-text articles from 63 journals published by the American Psychological Association.
  • PsycINFO is a psychology database from the American Psychological Association (APA), containing citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations.
  • PubMed comprises more than 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
  • The Royal Marsden Hospital Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures includes over 350 evidence-based clinical procedures related to every aspect of care, from hand washing to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. You can watch a video on how to use the Royal Marsden Manual here.
  • ScienceDirect is home to almost one-quarter of the world’s peer-reviewed full-text scientific, technical, social and medical content.
  • Wiley Online Library is a large multi-disciplinary database covering medicine and health, nursing, psychology, social work and policy, family and children and education.

In addition to journals and databases, you can also access printed and electronic books (eBooks) within your subject area.

The table below is a great place to start browsing the physical Library shelves. It lists a range of useful topics related to your subject area and the associated call number for that subject. The call number is the numbers (and usually letters too e.g. 808.042/GIL) on the spine of the book, which allows them to be arranged in a logical order on the Library shelves.

The call numbers listed below are the general area you will find books on the related subject, but you can also complete a search on Discover More for more specific titles and to access any eBooks on your chosen topic.

SubjectCall Number
Medical Ethics174.2
Social Work361.3
Counselling361.32
Nursing Research610.72
Nursing610.73
Nursing Models610.7301
Anatomy and Physiology611
Emergency Medicine616
Paramedics616.025
Mental Health616.89
Operating Department617
Midwifery618.2

These resources are great for use across all disciplines and programmes of study.

  • Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary database with more than 4,600 magazines and journals, including full-text access to nearly 3,900 scholarly and peer-reviewed journals.
  • Box of Broadcasts is an on-demand TV and radio service for educational research brought to you from Learning on Screen. The academically focused service enables you to watch and record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels in the UK and search an extensive archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts. The service includes ten foreign language channels and allows you to create clips and playlists to share or embed into presentations.
  • Browzine gives you access to top journals from your area of study in the Browzine Scholarly Journal Room. Browzine is a browsable newsstand of the University Library’s top journals, which lets you easily discover, read and monitor the key journals in your field. Learn more about Browzine in this short video.
  • LinkedIn Learninggives you full, free, unlimited access to thousands of high quality online courses and video tutorials written by industry experts. The courses cover many topics including using a wide range of software, and personal development skills in education, public speaking, employability and much more. You can even claim and display certificates for courses you complete on your LinkedIn profile, to give your online CV a boost!
  • SAGE Research Methods is a database which supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through each step of the research process. From writing your research question and choosing a method, to analysing data, writing up and publishing the findings. Resources include a methods map, books, reference works, journal articles, podcasts and instructional videos from world-leading academics. With information on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, Sage Research Methods is the ideal tool to support you through your research.
  • Scopus is the world’s largest abstract and citation database, containing 24,600 journals from 5,000 publishers. It is excellent for literature reviews or for finding out what has been published in your area as it can locate high quality journal articles, book chapters and more, for any subject. 
  • Springer Link provides researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols and reference works.
  • Statista is a comprehensive statistics platform offering over 1.5 million data sets. Find studies and reports, forecasts and surveys from over 400 industries that you can download in a range of formats. There are also video tutorials and a quick user guide to help you make the most of Statista.

Newspapers

Newspapers can be a useful way of keeping up to date with current affairs or recent events and newspaper archives usually contain issues with less recent information, which is useful for finding articles of a more historical interest.

  • British Library Newspapers (1800-1900) contains a large range of national, regional and local newspapers from the period. These include the Illustrated Police News, the Chartist Northern Star and the Morning Chronicle.
  • Daily Mail Historical Archive (1896-2004) contains news stories and images that capture twentieth century culture and society. Offering full page and article images, with searchable full-text back to the first issue, this is a useful resource for historical research.
  • The Financial Times contains news and analysis about the world of business and finance. The electronic collection goes back to 1999, the latest articles cannot be accessed for 30 days but are listed in search results.
  • Gale OneFile: News contains articles from over 2,300 newspapers from around the world. These include major British newspapers, as well as United States and Australian titles. It also has thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts.
  • The Guardian and The Observer Historical Newspapers (1791-2003) provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
  • Lexis+ contains over 650 regional and national UK newspapers from 1982 to the present. It is possible to limit your search to either national or regional titles, or you can search the whole of the newspaper database.
  • Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection is Reverend Charles Burney’s collection of early English news media. A comprehensive primary source for this period, which helps track the development of news.
  • Times Digital Archive contains every issue of The Times from 1785 to 2019. You can search by keyword or for a particular issue and each story appears as it looks in the original print copy of the newspaper.
  • Times Educational Supplement is the UK’s foremost weekly publication covering primary, secondary and further education and can be access by creating a personal account with your Edge Hill University email address.

Referencing

Referencing is the acknowledgment of all the sources that have been cited in your assignment, whether you have quoted them directly or paraphrased. This can include sources such as books and journal articles. There are various referencing styles available and your tutor will let you know which one they want you to use in your work.

Visit the UniSkills Referencing web page to learn more about academic integrity; the what, why and when you should be referencing; information, guides and interactive toolkits to support your referencing skills development; further Edge Hill Harvard Referencing support; and how to access further referencing support.

Medical professionals rely on information that is evidence-based in order to make the right decisions for patient care. Evidence-based means that the information you as a professional use, is based on sound research, not someone’s opinion. Typically, that means you must locate the best, published research studies on the topic you are researching. The published article (sometimes in paper, but most often in electronic form) presents the actual research results, so that you can see how the conclusions were reached. In addition, the researcher provides data to support those conclusions.

Finding the Evidence

  • BASE is one of the world’s most voluminous search engines especially for academic open access web resources.
  • CINAHL Complete Useful for postgraduates/researchers and more intermediate/advanced searchers.
  • Cochrane Library A user guide, videos and webinar recordings are available from the Cochrane Library Training Hub.
  • CORE gives you access to millions of scholarly articles aggregated from many Open Access repositories.
  • MEDLINE contains citations and abstracts from over 5200 biomedical journals and has been created by the United States National Library of Medicine.
  • NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries provide primary care practitioners with a summary of the current evidence base and guidance on best practice.
  • NICE Evidence Search provides access to selected and authoritative evidence in health, social care and public health.  Edge Hill students on NHS commissioned courses can register for an Open Athens account on the website.
  • PubMed comprises more than 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Appraising the Evidence

Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of research articles is required to determine the validity, reliability and applicability of the research to clinical practice. A checklist can help you with this process:

Recommended Resources

  • Analyse This is a free online tutorial to help students learn how to analyse research data.
  • Bandolier is an independent journal about evidence-based healthcare, written by Oxford scientists.
  • BestBETs Best Evidence Topics reviews (BETs) provide rapid evidence-based answers to real-life clinical questions, using a systematic approach to reviewing the literature.
  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is aimed at helping those working in the NHS, local authorities and the wider community deliver high-quality healthcare by developing evidence-based guidelines on the most effective ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease and ill health.
  • TRIP: Turning Research into Practice is a clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice.

Accessibility

There are lots of accessibility features available across all eResources and we’ve pulled together a useful highlight of these in our UniSkills Focus On: eResources Accessibility blog.

Reading Lists

Your Online Reading Lists are a great starting point when beginning your research. Your reading lists contain materials your tutor has identified as essential and/or recommended reading.

UniSkills

UniSkills support all undergraduate (UG) and taught postgraduate (PGT) students with their academic skills.

If you need any further help and support developing your research skills you can access lot of useful information on the UniSkills Finding Academic Information web page.

UniSkills also offer a range of academic skills workshops, including support with finding academic information and conducting literature reviews and you can book on as many UniSkills Workshops as you need throughout the year.

For more tailored support developing your research skills, or getting the most out of your subject resources, you can book a one-to-one Information Skills appointment with an experienced Academic Skills Advisor. 

Research Support

If you are staff engaged in research or a research student (including PGCert in Research, MRes, MPhil and PhD) you can access additional support from the University Library Research Support team. Visit the Research Support web pages for more information.

TechSkills

TechSkills is a package of face to face support, online resources and activities to help you develop and enhance your technology skills. You can find out more about specialist workstations and software available by visiting the TechSkills web page.

Ask Us

You can always access our online knowledge base and help tool Ask Us to search our frequently asked questions (FAQs) and even send us an email, if you can’t find the information you need – accessible 24/7.

Digital Skills

E-learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) is a Health Education England programme working with the NHS and professional bodies to support patient care by providing e-learning to the health and social care workforce.