A patient asks a clinician, "Does vitamin C prevent the common cold? Are there effective therapies to treat a cold once you have one?" Although these questions are common, they are not always easy to answer. Medical knowledge is advancing rapidly, and the literature that reports new findings is expanding by almost half a million articles every year.
In the past, a clinician might seek answers to these questions within a textbook. But textbooks are updated infrequently, only every 3-5 years. And a new, definitive study might be published in today's medical journals, but not appear in the most recent textbooks.
The clinician might call an infectious disease specialist. But specialists are very busy, and may not have time to answer such questions.
The clinician might perform a traditional search in a medical database, such as MEDLINE. Unfortunately, a search using the MeSH term "common cold" yields over 1,400 articles written in the last 30 years. Finding a relevant article might take as long as 30 minutes or more.
But today, with Ovid's Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR), answering clinical questions is a whole lot easier. Using Ovid's MEDLINE, a clinician can enter the term "common cold," select the EBM Reviews limit, and in seconds, a small number of high-quality articles appear that discuss prevention and treatment of the common cold.
Some of the articles retrieved have met rigorous inclusion criteria by the international Cochrane Collaboration, and then have been used as the basis for a systematic topic review. Clicking on the Topic Review link retrieves the Cochrane Review "Vitamin C for the Common Cold" which analyzes and synthesizes over 30 of the best clinical trials on the subject.
Other articles in the result set have been the subject of an evidence-based article review by the editorial staff of ACP Journal Club (a joint project of the American College of Physicians and BMJ Publishing Group) or by the National Health Services (NHS) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York, England. Clicking on the Article Review link retrieves the enhanced abstract of the article together with commentary about the article's relevance to clinical practice.
So, the result from using EBMR of Ovid: the most comprehensive answer in less than a minute. EBMR helps clinicians to find the best answer to clinical questions in the least amount of time.
ACP Journal Club (ACP) is the second component in Ovid's growing collection of Evidence Based Medicine Reviews collection. The ACP Journal Club Collection consists of two journals ACP Journal Club, a publication of the American College of Physicians, and Evidence-Based Medicine, a joint publication with the British Medical Journal Group.
The editors of ACP Journal Club screen the top clinical journals on a regular basis and identify studies that are both methodologically sound and clinically relevant. They write an enhanced abstract of the chosen articles and provide a commentary on the value of the article for clinical practice. Using this source, clinicians can quickly understand and apply to their practice important changes in medical knowledge, without having to read and synthesize for themselves thousands of journal articles.
Every word of the document text in ACP Journal Club is searchable, including references, captions, and footnotes. Searching the ACP Journal Club Fields describes all the searchable fields and provides at least one search example for each. You may also browse the Evidence-Based Medicine and ACP Journal Club publications using the Browse Journals button. Within the Full Text display, hypertext features allow you to display an outline of the document and move immediately to a selected section, and to display complete references cited within the text of a document.
Full text links in the references allow you to explore the evidence in the primary source. Full text references link you to other full text documents within the database, as well as to bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE. Bi-directional linking allows you to link from MEDLINE to documents in the same collection or to journals available in Ovid Full Text.
ACP Journal Club contains the complete contents of the database dating back to 1991.
Links from ACP to Ovid Full Text—You can move from a source article reference in an ACP review to the corresponding Ovid Full Text document, facilitating seamless exploration of the evidence in the primary source.
Limit an Ovid MEDLINE search to EBM Reviews—In addition to these high quality links between MEDLINE and EBMR databases, it is worth mentioning the EBMR-specific limits within Ovid's MEDLINE. In effect, these limits enable you to filter your MEDLINE results to include only those articles that have met the strict, quality criteria of ACP Journal Club, DARE, or the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. So, for example, you could limit a MEDLINE search to "Article Reviews <ACP Journal Club>," restricting retrieval to those MEDLINE records that have an associated ACP review. You can also limit your MEDLINE search to "All EBMR Article Reviews" to restrict retrieval to only those MEDLINE records that have an associated ACP or DARE review. Or, obtain only MEDLINE records that have an associated Cochrane, ACP, or DARE review by limiting your MEDLINE search to "Evidence Based Medicine Reviews."
The About This Journal button links you to information about the two journals in the ACP Journal Club database, ACP Journal Club and Evidence-Based Medicine, including:
The About this Journal button is available from every Table of Contents, every full text article display, and from the Browse Journals display.
You can browse through the issues of Evidence-Based Medicine and ACP Journal Club by using the Browse Journals button on the main search screen. The "Issue List" allows you to view the Table of Contents for any issue, and link to the bibliographic record or full text of each article.
The "About this Journal" feature, which provides journal-specific information, is also accessible from the Browse Journals screen.
The following limits are available on the Main Search Screen:
The following additional limits are available from the Limit menu on the Main Search Screen.
Popular Command and Sentence Syntax Limits:
Commentary
Command Syntax: ..l/1 cm=y
Sentence Syntax: limit 1 to commentary
Publication Types
Sentence Syntax: limit 1 to letter
limit 1 to diagnosis
limit 1 to therapeutics
Publication Years
Command Syntax: ..l/1 yr=1996
Sentence Syntax: limit 1 to yr=1996
The following alphabetical list provides the two letter label, the relevant alias, and at least one example for all searchable ACP Journal Club fields.
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Label Name/Example
===== ============
AB Abstract [Word Indexed]
bone density.ab.
drug abuse.ab.
The Abstract (AB) field summarizes the content of the document and
generally describes the background, methods, results, and conclusions.
Only documents which appeared in print with an abstract will include an
abstract in this database.
Stopwords such as "of" or "the" display in documents but are not
searchable and do not appear in the Abstract index.
AF All Searchable Fields
fatty acid.af.
All Fields (AF) is an alias for all of the fields which occur in
the source documents, including value-added fields such as Subject
Headings.
AN Accession Number [Phrase Indexed]
00021607-199703000-00031.an.
The Accession Number (AN) field contains a 22-digit number which
uniquely identifies each document in the database.
While searching this field, include all leading zeros and internal
hyphens.
The Accession Number is not related to the 8-digit MEDLINE Unique
Identifier.
AM Commentary Author [Phrase Indexed]
smith.am.
john$.am.
The Commentary Author (AM) field contains the names of all the authors
of the commentary of the reviewed article, in the order in which they
appear in the article.
Author names appear in the format of last name followed by first and
middle names, or last name followed by two initials.
AP Author's Response [Word Indexed]
bell's palsy.ap.
consensus.ap.
The Author's Response (AP) field contains any response the author of
the original article made to the commentary (review) of the original
study. Information in the author's response field is also included in
the TX field as well. The author's full name is included in this field
along with the response.
AU Author [Phrase Indexed]
ashton carol m.au.
haynes$.au.
The Author (AU) field is an alias which includes the names of all
authors of a document, including the commentary authors,
in the order in which they appear in the article.
Author names appear in the format of last name followed by first and
middle names, or last name followed by up to two initials.
AY Reviewed Article Author [Phrase Indexed]
chapman kr.ay.
The Reviewed Article Author (AY) field contains the names of all the
authors of the article or study being reviewed. This field is phrase
indexed. Type the desired author's last name, followed by a space
and the initial, if known. If you are unsure of the spelling of the
last name, enter one version and you will be able to scroll through
the index of names to find the others.
BT Byline Text [Word Indexed]
netherlands.bt.
source of funding.bt.
The Byline Text (BT) field contains miscellaneous information about
the article. Information about grants, dates of publisher acceptance,
and so on, is included in this field.
If the article was published in both ACP Journal Club and BMJ's
Evidence-Based Medicine, the BMJ citation will appear in this field.
CA Cited Author [Phrase Indexed]
avorn j.ca.
The Cited Author (CA) field includes the names of authors cited in
references. Author names are entered into the index in the format of
last name followed by first and middle names, or last name followed by
initials.
CI Commentary Author's Institution [Word Indexed]
harvard university.ci.
washington university medical center.ci.
The Commentary Author's Institution (CI) field lists the affiliation(s)
of the commentary author(s) as noted in the document at the time of
publication. The mailing address is often given, as are grant numbers
and the names of the institutions financially supporting the research.
CM Commentary [Word Indexed]
adjuvant therapy.cm.
The Commentary (CM) field contains a brief, highly expert comment on
the context of each article (appearing in the Reviewed Source field),
its methods and clinical applications that its findings warrant.
Stopwords such as "of" or "the" will display in documents, but are not
searchable and will not appear in the Commentary index.
CT Caption Text [Word Indexed]
mitochondria.ct.
squamous cell.ct.
The Caption Text (CT) field includes the descriptive text for tables,
figures, and other graphics as they appear in the journal in which
the document was published.
DO Reviewed Article Date of Publication [Word Indexed]
1997.do.
The Reviewed Article Date of Publication (DO) field contains information
such as the season, quarter, month, day, and year of publication for
article or study being reviewed. To find reviewed articles published in
September, type "sep" and use the index to select all relevant
variations. You may want to combine a season or month with a year and
a journal name to narrow the results.
DP Date of Publication [Word Indexed]
1996.dp.
feb.dp.
The Date of Publication (DP) field contains the month, year, and
possibly day that the journal was published. This field usually
displays as part of the Source (SO) field.
DT Document Type [Phrase Indexed]
prognosis.dt.
quality improvement.dt.
The Document Type (DT) field supplements the Publication Type (PT) field
by providing an additional, more specific description of a document's
form and substance. This field will often contain the titles of columns
of regular features that are specific to a given journals publication.
Enter the first few letters of the desired document type, or root on the
letter "a" to view and select from the complete list of document types
and words that appear as part of document types.
DV Reviewed Article Volume [Phrase Indexed]
"17".dv.
The Reviewed Article Volume (DV) field contains the volume of the
printed journal in which the Reviewed Article was published. This
field displays as part of the Reviewed Source (SR) field.
GO Reviewed Article Pages [Phrase Indexed]
103.go.
The Reviewed Article Pagination (GO) field contains the starting page
number in the printed journal in which the reviewed article was
published. This field displays as part of the Reviewed Source (SR)
field. Often, a search using the publication year and the beginning
page number is enough to locate a particular citation.
IN Institution [Word Indexed]
department of veterans affairs.in.
The Institution (IN) field lists the affiliation(s) or the author(s) as
noted in the document at the time of publication. The mailing address is
often given, as are grant numbers and the names of institutions
financially supporting the research.
IP Issue/Part [Word Indexed]
"9".ip.
The Issue/Part (IP) field includes the issue and supplement number in
which the document was published. This field displays as part of the
Source field (SO).
IS ISSN [Phrase Indexed]
1056 8751.is.
The ISSN (IS) field contains the International Standard Serial Number
for the journal in which the document was published.
JN Journal Name [Phrase Indexed]
acp journal club.jn.
The Journal Name (JN) field contains the full name of the journal in
which the article (i.e., review, editorial, or letter) was published.
This database contains only two journals--ACP Journal Club and BMJ's
Evidence-Based Medicine.
Stopwords such as "of" are included in the JN index, but when "the" is
the first word of a journal, it has been stripped.
The word "and", which is a Boolean operator and a stopword in most
fields, can be searched in the Journal Name field using the
ampersand ("&").
JW Journal Words [Word Indexed]
medicine.jw.
The Journal Word (JW) field contains individual words from every
journal name in the database. This database contains only two
journals--ACP Journal Club and BMJ's Evidence-Based Medicine.
This field is used to retrieve every occurrence of a journal which
includes a particular word such as "dermatology."
KW Keywords [Word Indexed]
metabolism.kw.
t lymphocytes.kw.
The Keywords (KW) field contains author assigned terms that describe
the document. This field exists only for documents where the author has
assigned keywords.
LG Language [Phrase Indexed]
english.lg.
The Language (LG) field contains the language or languages in which the
main body of the document is written.
PD Publication Date [Phrase Indexed]
19960801.pd.
The Publication Date (PD) field contains an 8-digit number representing
the year, month, and day (in YYYYMMDD format) in which documents were
published in the original print journals.
Enter the desired date in the format "YYYYMMDD" where "YYYY" corresponds
to the 4-digit year, "MM" to the 2-digit month, and "DD" to the day.
Use truncation "199711$.up." or "1997$.up." to retrieve all the records
published in a particular month or year.
PG Pages [Phrase Indexed]
"9".pg.
"103".pg.
The Pages (PG) field contains the starting page number in the printed
journal in which the document was published. The field displays as part
of the Source field (SO).
Often, a search using the publication year and the beginning page
number is enough to locate a particular citation.
PO Reviewed Article Issue/Part [Word Indexed]
"9".po.
The Reviewed Article Issue/Part (PO) field includes the issue and
supplement number in which the reviewed article was published. This
field displays as part of the Reviewed Source (SR) field.
PT Publication Type [Phrase Indexed]
therapeutics.pt.
editorial.pt.
The Publication Type (PT) field describes a document's overall form and
substance in broad categories. These publication types include
therapeutics, editorial, diagnosis, prognosis, economics, quality
improvement, and letter.
Enter the first few letters of the desired publication type, or root on
the letter "a" to view and select from the complete list of publication
types.
RF References [Word Indexed]
obstet gynecol.rf.
barnett go.rf.
The Reference (RF) field includes complete bibliographic citations for
the publications cited by authors in full text documents. These
references can be viewed along with the citation or with full text.
Enter the desired reference information, consisting of words typically
found in reference. Consider searching on words in document title,
journal name or abbreviation, author name, page number, or year.
RW Reviewed Article Journal Word [Word Indexed]
neurology.rw.
The Reviewed Article Journal Word (RW) field contains individual words
from every journal in which a reviewed article was published.
SJ Reviewed Article Journal Name [Phrase Indexed]
jama.sj.
am j med.sj.
The Reviewed Article Journal Name (SJ) field contains the full name
of the journal in which the Reviewed Article was published.
SO Source
evidence based medicine.so.
1992.so.
The Source (SO) field includes the basic information needed to locate
a source document, including the journal name, volume, issue/part,
pagination, and year of publication.
SR Reviewed Source
arch gen psychiatry.sr.
meyer tj.ay.
The Reviewed Source (SR) field includes the complete bibliographic
citation(s) for the publication(s) being reviewed. These references
can be viewed with the citation or with the full text. Enter the desired
reference information, consisting of words typically found in a
reference. Consider searching on words in the document title, journal
name or abbreviation, author name, page number, or year. If you know
the specific information you are seeking (for example, a document
title), you may also choose to search in the Reviewed Article Title
(TO), Reviewed Article Journal (SJ), Reviewed Article Author (AY),
Reviewed Article Page Number (GO), or Reviewed Article Year (YO). When
available, reviewed source references in the full text document contain
links to bibliographic and full text records.
TI Title [Word Indexed]
rheumatoid arthritis.ti.
The Title (TI) field contains the English language version of the
title as it appears in the journal.
Stopwords such as "of" or "the" display in documents but do not
appear in the title index. However, the word "a", which is a stopword
in other fields, can be searched in the title field.
TO Reviewed Article Title [Word Indexed]
geriatric.to.
The Reviewed Article Title (TO) field contains the title of the source
being reviewed.
Stopwords such as "of" or "the" will display in documents but do not
appear in the title index. However, the word "a", which is a stopword
in other fields, can be searched in the title field.
TX Full Text [Word Indexed]
panadol.tx.
The Full Text (TX) field contains the complete document text. This
field allows you to retrieve all documents with even the most passing
mention of your search term.
Since this field contains such a large quantity of diverse information,
most searches for a specific subject retrieve more relevant
results if conducted in the Title (TI) or Abstract (AB) fields.
Stopwords, which include commonly occurring words such as "of" and
"the" display in the documents but do not appear in the Full Text
index.
UP Update Code [Phrase Indexed]
19971128.up.
The Update Code (UP) field contains a 8-digit number representing
the year, month and day in (YYYYMMDD format) in which documents were
published in this database.
Enter the desired date in the format "YYYYMMDD" where "YYYY"
corresponds to the 4-digit year, "MM" to the 2-digit month and "DD" to
the day. Use truncation "199711$.up." or "1997$.up." to retrieve all
the records added in a particular month or year.
VO Volume [Phrase Indexed]
124.vo.
The Volume (VO) field contains the volume of the printed journal in
which the document was published. This field displays as part of the
Source (SO) field.
YR Year of Publication [Word Indexed]
1997.yr.
The Year of Publication (YR) field contains the year in which the
printed journal containing the document was published. This field
displays as part of the Source (SO) field.
===== ============
Field Name/Example
===== ============
TJ Contents by Journal Name [Phrase Indexed]
evidence based medicine.tj.
The Contents by Journal Name (TJ) displays each issue of a certain
journal in the database.
The TJ field differs from the JN field in that the TJ field brings
up entire issues of a journal. The JN field retrieves the
individual articles from those issues.
TV Contents by Volume [Phrase Indexed]
vol 2.tv.
The Contents by Volume (TV) field contains each journal issue available
in the database.
Command Syntax: ..c/acp Sentence Syntax: use acp
The copyrights for the journal articles are held by their respective journals. For each journal-specific copyright information, use the About This Journal feature.
The following general usage statement applies to all journals:
The materials contained herein are proprietary to the publishers and/or individual copyright holders and may only be used by authorized users of the subscribing institutions for internal or personal research. Authorized users may (i) print data obtained from searches and make limited copies of such printed search results, (ii) download data obtained from searches and (iii) retransmit search results electronically or otherwise to a limited number of authorized users at the same institution. Authorized users are precluded from: (i) copying, duplication, redistribution, retransmission, publication, transfer or commercial or other exploitation of the databases or the contents thereof, except as permitted herein or pursuant to user guidelines of the individual copyright holders, (ii) preparation of derivative works or incorporation of the databases or contents thereof in any other work or system; (iii) downloading of the contents in their entirety or lengthy sequence. Authorized users are referr ed to the individual copyright holder and/or to the copyright holder's usage guidelines within this database for additional restrictions which may be imposed by the copyright holder.
Revised 02 March 2000