LLS Home: Occupational Therapy Dissertation Literature Search: Key sources

Resources at UON

The Library at the University of Northampton subscribes to a number of different databases and journals to support your academic studies.

Using NELSON

You can use NELSON to search the Library’s books, e-books, e-journals, videos & more. Login with your University username and password at the top right hand side of the page so you can access the full-text material and save your search results.

If the item is available electronically, you’ll see a link to the full-text online. If the content is available in print, you’ll see a shelfmark letting you know where to find the book on the shelf.

Useful Databases

AMED - The Allied and Complementary Medicine Database
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AMED: Allied and Complementary Medicine database containing allied and complementary journals and abstracts from 1985 onwards. Produced by the British Library. Good starting point for Occupational Therapy and Podiatry searches.

CINAHL Ultimate
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CINAHL Ultimate is the definitive full-text database for nursing and allied health research covering over 50 nursing specialties. Additionally, it features full-text quick lessons, evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, nursing instructional videos, and more.

PsycNET
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PsycNET is an amalgamation of PsycInfo (which is an abstract database of psychological literature from the 1800s to today) and PsycArticles (which offers access to the full-text of APA journals).

SAGE Journals Online
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Access to academic journals for a range of disciplines, including Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.

SAGE Research Methods
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SAGE Research Methods helps users create research projects and understand the methods behind them. It includes over 600 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the “Little Green Book” and “Little Blue Book” series. Journal articles and videos are also included.
SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. It contains more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online. The site is designed to guide users to the content they need to learn a little or a lot about their method. The Methods Map can help those less familiar with research methods to find the best technique to use in their research.

Introduction to videos

These short videos have been created to help you access and use the databases to search for relevant information for your assignments. Descriptions about what the databases cover and links to access them are available on the A-Z Database list.

Accessing the databases Video demonstrating how to access the databases via NELSON using your University login.

Click on the information icon next to the title of the video, to find out more about what the video demonstrates.

Searching the databases - videos

CINAHL Plus with Full Text: basic search This short video is designed to introduce you to the database CINAHL Plus with full text. It shows you how to do a basic search with keywords, using the filters in the database.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text: Advanced search This short video will demonstrate how to do an advanced search using the CINAHL Subject Headings in the database. It shows you how to access CINAHL Subject Headings and combine searches to refine down the number of search results
Internurse: basic search This short video is designed to introduce you to the Internurse database. It shows you how to do a basic search with keywords, and narrow down the results using the options available.
Maternity and Infant Care An introduction to the Maternity and Infant Care database, including a demonstration of how to narrow down your search using additional keywords and filters in the database. It also shows how to use the 'UON Find It' button to look for the full text of the article and how to complete an interlibrary loan request.
MEDLINE - MeSH Terms This video demonstrates how to use the Medical Subject Headings in MEDLINE to focus your search. MeSH or Medical Subject Headings are the labels that the database uses to organise the articles within MEDLINE.
PsycNet: basic search This short video is designed to introduce you to the PsycNet database. It shows you how to do a basic search with keywords, using the filters in the database.
PsycNet: APA Thesaurus This video demonstrates how to use the APA Thesaurus in PsycNet to refine your search to Index Terms for a more focused and relevant search.
Science Direct database search This short video is designed to introduce you to the Science Direct database. It shows you how to focus your search using keywords, and the filters in the database, to refine your search to research articles.
Web of Science - basic search This short video is designed to introduce you to the Web of Science database. It shows you how to focus your search, and use the additional tools in the database to look at citation reports.

Government guidance and statistics

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) is a database containing details of all admissions, A and E attendances and outpatient appointments at NHS hospitals in England.

This same data can also be processed and used for non-clinical purposes, such as research and planning health services. Because these uses are not to do with direct patient care, they are called 'secondary uses'. This is the HES data set.

HES data covers all NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England, including:

private patients treated in NHS hospitals
patients resident outside of England
care delivered by treatment centres (including those in the independent sector) funded by the NHS

The Public Health Profiles are a rich source of indicators across a range of health and wellbeing themes to improve health and wellbeing, and reduce inequalities. With these profiles you can:

Browse indicators at different geographical levels
Benchmark against the regional or England average
Export data to use locally

These profiles have been developed by Public Health England.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations agency that connects nations, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health. Their website provides factsheets, publications and statistical information about key health topics.