Optimising database searching in pharmacy education

Denise L Hope; Gary D Grant; Gary D Rogers; Michelle A King

doi:10.1093/ijpp/riac078

Optimising database searching in pharmacy education

Int J Pharm Pract. 2022 Dec 31;30(6):580-582. doi: 10.1093/ijpp/riac078.

Authors

Denise L Hope¹, Gary D Grant¹, Gary D Rogers², Michelle A King¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
² School of Medicine, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, Australia.

PMID: 36356039
DOI: 10.1093/ijpp/riac078

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of databases in a pharmacy education literature search.

Methods: Six databases (CINAHL, ERIC, Google Scholar, Ovid MEDLINE, Science Direct and Scopus) were compared for effectiveness in identifying pharmacy education literature. Articles were coded for database of retrieval and results cross-referenced. Sensitivity, precision and number of unique retrievals were calculated.

Key findings: Scopus yielded the highest sensitivity (65%) and precision (47%). The combination of three databases (Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar) identified 97% (n = 64) of 66 relevant articles.

Conclusions: Pharmacy education literature searches require more than one database, ideally Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar.

Keywords: database; literature review; pharmacy education.

MeSH terms

Bibliometrics*
Databases, Factual
Humans
Information Storage and Retrieval*