An introduction to Embase

Editor's Notes

• #11: MEDLINE you probably know and MEDLINE data is included in Embase, as well as unique Embase content, not found in MEDLINE. Will this additional content make a difference and most importantly lead you with more confidence to an answer? We will come back to this when in Embase later in the webinar.What about having the most up to date content when you carry out your search or including in regular email alerts? AiP/In Process and conference abstracts give you access to the most up to date research and we will show you how to integrate in your searches and email alerts later in the webinar. We now cover over 2.5K conferences with over 800K conference abstracts.
• #13: If your research is around Diabetes type II or non-insulin dependant Diabetes Mellitus as it is also known for example, then you need to include all published research but what if an author uses a different term to the one you used in your search? Emtree, our biomedical thesaurus automatically supports your search and will map your search terms so all synonyms are included in your search. Here you can see the enormous selection of terms available, over 60K with 29K being drug and chemical terms.Maybe not all synonyms are there yet? Emtree is updated 3 times a year so the chance of missing a term is considerably lower compared to databases which are updated once a year with new terms. Content is updated daily by the way, here we are talking about updating the thesaurus with new terms.
• #14: Here we see that studies directly related to levels of evidence used in evidence based medicine practice are included in Emtree, which means you can search for all RCTs indexed by our indexers, not just where they are mentioned or have to think of a sufficient search string to retrieve them. It is also possible to search for drugs and diseases within a specific context, such as drug combination, pharmacoeconomics, pharmaceutics, endogenous compound, disease management and epidemiology. Routes of drug administration may also be specifically searched for.
• #16: And now you have access to the biomedical literature and a huge selection of relevant index terms, how DO you find your answers?Quick Search allows easy and quick access to the best terms for your search...
• #17: And from the session results page, you can use the filters on the left of your results to further refine. Here you see the disease filter and we can see which diseases are referenced in our result set for Januvia, either as a therapeutic area or side effect.
• #18: Searching for specific types of content is also possible but using the field limits as seen here to search for conference name, conference date and conference location.You may also select conferences from the Publication Type limit or AiP. You will also notice AiP/In Process in Quick limits for even easier accessibility.
• #19: Don’t loose those important searches, register in Embase so you may save your searches or set up email alerts. Registering also means you receive all up to date information such as upcoming webinars.
• #21: ME: May I introduce Pierre. Pierre is a clinical liaison librarian, in the Information Services Biomedical Library, Center for Evidence-Based Research. They work with 3 main hospitals.Pierre, can you tell us more about your role and your main points of concern?PIERRE: It is many, for example, I instruct users in the use of library resources and management of information and I assist with literature searches on evidence-based practice issues, consulting with staff conducting systematic reviews with regards to search strategies. I serve as the primary library contact for many of the resources used by clinicians.My users are mainly involved in finding information from relevant and reliable sources regarding the effects of different forms of healthcare and they must be through when conducting this research and when publishing.ME: Are your users preparing articles for publication, particularly Systematic Review Articles. PIERRE: Yes and we hear more and more that journal editors and referees now stipulate that Embase searches are needed and authors publishing in the field of EBM, who need to follow Cochrane guidelines MUST conduct Embase searches. How can we best incorporate this into their workflow? Some users are still convinced that Medline is enough and some have even asked about Scopus. ME: Let’s have a look at the unique value Embase offers and also how easy it is to search with confidence!
• #23: We can now refer to the full text for more details, having already checked the relevance of the article to our clinical query , in Embase.
• #24: One of the major steps in conducting a systematic review is a comprehensive literature search. With Embase, all users, regardless of experience may enter the best term or terms to search, even on the Quick Search page. Entering the drug in a non-indexed database is possible but if you do not enter the generic name, there are no prompts in Scopus, used here as an example. A clinician trying to carry out a literature search alone, may know to use some of the commonly known terms for his search but maybe not all. Embase will help him/her select the term which automatically includes all the synonyms for that term.In Scopus, they are carrying out a free text search for januvia. I would like to point out that Scopus is an excellent all-science database with strengths in citation and author analysis for example but here we are looking at finding the best biomedical results and how indexing impacts your results.
• #28: Pubmed (MEDLINE) does allow thesaurus assistedsearching but here also we notice a difference in the number of results retrieved. Pubmed finds 132 results compared to 8,000 in Embase. We know there is unique content in Embase, the conference abstracts shown here for example,but there is also a difference in indexing focus and so Embase indexes more drugs, more deeply.
• #29: In Medline, this article although present in Medline is not indexed with digoxin and therefore our search for digoxin and antibacterial agents did not find this article. As we know already, it is found in Embase.
• #32: Antibiotic and digoxin with drug combinationANDCongestive heart failure with drug therapyAND PneumoniaSave this search – remove drug therapy from disease and rerun main searchNow in session results, remove drug comparison from drug sub-searches and note asterix (indicates which searches have been effected by a change to a related search)– now click on result number to update your search strategy.Compare the effectiveness of sitagliptin and saxagliptin in the treatment of type II diabetes mellitus (show this in Emtree)Go to Drug Search and type in sitagliptin and saxagliptin with drug comparison. Go to Emtree and show diabetes mellitus and then go to ‘type 2 diabetes mellitus’. Take this to Disease Search and combine with disease subheading ‘drug therapy’. Combine both searches.Show editing options. NOT [review]/limAdvanced combine on the Session Results: Last search above NOT saxagliptin search, for example #2 NOT #1.Quickly show Emtree to find suitable terms/subject headings and then using Drug Search to add subheadings.
• #33: Find disease management studies for Type II diabetesGo to Emtree and type in diabetes. Once you see the tree, select non-insulin dependant diabetes mellitus. Click on ‘take this to Disease search’. Point out ‘major focus’ option if users would like to limit their search to only records where the disease is of major importance and show on Disease Search form. Show quick and advanced limits.You can then add the subheading ‘disease management’. Check filters for drugs and study types.