Self Study

Click on the links below to view online guides to the clinical information resources available.

Don’t know how to start your literature search? Visit the Literature searching pages for assistance with structuring your clinical question and much more.

For high quality reviews of the best research on the effectiveness of health care interventions start with the Cochrane library, check How to use the Cochrane Library Guide, it provides a detailed overview of available features and functionality in the Cochrane Library, and it is available in several languages.

NHS Evidence provides a range of clinical databases [hyperlink] for NHS staff including MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, BNI (British Nursing Index), AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine), PsycInfo, Health Business Elite, HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium). See below for a quick guide to searching. Scope of and guides for individual databases can be found also by going to NICE Journals and Databases and selecting ‘Begin an Advanced Search’ under Healthcare databases advanced search (requires OpenAthens log in), HDAS Advanced Search Help guide .

If you use PubMed to search, some of the articles in your results may be available in full text using your NHS OpenAthens username and password. To see these full text articles you will need to create a My NCBI account, Guide to PubMed.