Oxford LibGuides: NHS: Cochrane Library

Introduction

The Cochrane Library incorporates six key resources in the field of evidence-based practice. A seventh database provides information about groups in The Cochrane Collaboration.

The Cochrane Library is an online source of evidence on the effectiveness of a wide range of health care interventions. Its content comprises full text Cochrane systematic reviews published online, structured abstracts of other systematic reviews published in medical and health journals, and a register of controlled clinical trials. These are located in separate databases which are searched simultaneously.

The content is updated online every three months to incorporate completely new systematic reviews, updates of existing reviews and withdrawal of obsolete reviews.

Getting started

The Cochrane Library is free to NHS staff, patients and the public in the United Kingdom.Access via the link below.

Cochrane Library

Simple searches

From the Cochrane Library website:

Enter a term or terms e.g. asthma and child, in the search box at the top right of the screen and click Go.
All the different databases are searched simultaneously: Cochrane Reviews, Other Reviews, Clinical Trials, Methods Studies, Technology Assessments and Economic Evaluations. The number of results are shown next to each database name. Browse the results and click on the title to access the abstract and a link through to the full text PDF.
Simple search defaults to searching in Title, Abstract or Keywords. If you get too many results, restrict the search to the title field only by selecting Record Title from the drop down menu to the left of the search box.

Advanced searches

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is the leading resource for systematic reviews in health care. The CDSR includes Cochrane Reviews (the systematic reviews) and protocols for Cochrane Reviews as well as editorials.

This search form gives you more flexibility in formulating your search to look for matches for your terms in specific fields (for example Author) and to combine search terms using AND/OR/NOT.

Need any help?

The Cochrane Library website has produced a range of guides to help you use this resource. Hover over Help in their main menu bar for further instructions.

Search tips

If you want to search for a phrase, enter it with quotes, for example "colon cancer", otherwise the words will be searched as colon AND cancer which may give irrelevant results.
Plurals are automatically searched, child will also find children.
Truncate terms at either end of a word by typing in an asterisk symbol.
Typing NEAR between search terms can be used instead of AND to narrow your search, for example smoking NEAR pregnancy will find the two words within six words of each other in either order, so is more specific than using AND. If you need to, you can specify the number of words apart, for example NEAR/4.
Use the Search history link to trace back all your search steps. They can be combined using AND/OR, for example #3 AND #7.
There are more useful search tips listed under Search help.

Saving search strategies/ exporting citations

From the search screen click Register in the top right corner.
Complete the Registration form.
Next time, use the Login option on the top right hand side.
When you obtain your results click on Save search.
From your search results you can export selected or all citations to a separate file.