The Cochrane Library University Library

“Independent evidence to inform decision making in healthcare.” The Cochrane Library consists of seven databases:  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) – full-text Cochrane Reviews  Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) – references for Clinical Trials 2

 Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR) – Method Studies: references  Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) – Other Reviews  Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Database – Technology Assessments  NHS Economic Evaluation Database (EED) – Economic Evaluations  About the Cochrane Collaboration database – Cochrane Groups 3

 CDSR and the ‘About the Cochrane Collaboration’ database are updated monthly, the other databases quarterly.  The Cochrane Library is currently freely available to everyone in the UK thanks to funding from the NHS.  No password is needed although you will need to ‘Sign up’ if you want to save your searches or create alerts. 4

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Consider this search example Identify measures which will lead to the prevention of falls and fall related injuries in the elderly. 6

You could try a simple search… Using the search term fall The Cochrane Library will automatically truncate your search terms for you, so this search will retrieve documents that contain… fall, falls, falling, fallen etc. 7

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9 Search Results

10 Select the title link to open the full-text Cochrane Review

11 Scroll down

12 Look at the ‘Author’s conclusions’ and the ‘Plain language summary’

13 Full-text options

14 Go back to your results

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16 ‘Other Reviews’

17 Follow the title link

18 Reference details

19 If you have too many results use the ‘Advanced Search’ option

20 To make the search more specific change the drop-down to title, abstract or keywords

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For further information:  See the ‘Learn’ and ‘Help’ links on the Cochrane Library homepage Or  Contact the Library team who support Health Sciences via… 22

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