Advantages/disadvantages of information sources

Source Advantage Disadvantage

Books  Easy to access  Quickly out of date
 Scope for greater  Quality of indexing
depth of coverage varies
than journal  Time consuming to
 Overview search/scan
 Portable  Expensive to buy
 Familiar  Storage problems
 Reduced cost if can  Access to libraries
borrow from library may be limited
 Heavy
Primary journals  More current  Not necessarily an
 May be available overview
free on-line  Not all titles indexed
 May be peer  Time consuming to
reviewed search/scan
 Easy to access  May not have access
 Portable to all titles
electronically
 Problems with peer
review
Secondary journals  Have structured  Summaries only
abstract  Brief results only
 Comments from  May not have access
independent experts to all titles
 Critically appraised electronically
evidence  Don’t cover all topic
 Methodologically areas
sound studies
 Strict inclusion
criteria
 Clinically relevant
studies
Abstracts and indexes  Broad overview of  Limited depth
literature  Abstracts often
 Generally good written by authors
quality -biased?
Reference lists &  Useful pointers to  Subjective selection
bibliographies related literature on by another
topic  Unclear criteria
 Pulls out good
 quality articles
Supervisors,  Personal, specific for  Bias
colleagues, mentors your needs  Variability in
 Easily accessible willingness and
 Shared interest in motivation to help
quality improvement  Priorities may be
 Team goals different
 Encourages  May be large
communication travelling distances
amongst teams  Time pressure
Internet  Very up-to-date  No central directory;
 Valuable/unique information and sites
information difficult to locate
 Professional  No censorship or
networking editing procedures
information  No quality
exchange guarantee/not
 Full-text validated
 Access to world-wide  Can be slow
information depending on
 24-hour access network
 Needs computer and
ICT skills
 Costs of getting
addicted-time
wasted?
E-mail  Speed of delivery  Attachments can be
 Documents, difficult to deal with
multimedia clips can  Electronic junk mail
be attached to (‘spam’) can annoy
messages  Threat of viruses
 Replies and within attachments
forwarding of
messages handled
by software
 Private messages
can be encrypted
 Active web-page
address links
Mailing lists  One-to-many  Most people ‘lurk’
communication during discussion
 Subject specific  Require care with
 Free to subscribe ’netiquette’
between lists (etiquette using the
  Can be set up to net)
receive weekly  Amount of messages
digests only vary
 Access to wide range  Mistakes sent to
of opinion everybody
 Very cheap means of  Difficult to sustain
dissemination discussion
 Can be open or
closed to public
 Central archives
have search/browse
facility
Bibliographic  Very wide range of  Not fully up-to-date
databases journals indexed  Only some have
 Regular updating access to full text
 Time saving  Bias (e.g
 User-friendly? MEDLINE=US,
 Free-text (textword) Embase=European)
searching supported  Reflects publication
 Controlled bias
vocabularies  Not always
 Fast/sophisticated accessible
search facilities  Sometimes hard to
use
 Difficult to acquire
foreign articles
Medline/Pubmed  Universally available  US bias
 International  Selective journal
coverage coverage
 Thesaurus-controlled  Poor indexing
indexing
 Search by
publication type
 Quality filters
available
CINAHL  Variety of interfaces  US bias
available  Poor indexing
 Subject orientated  Selective journal
 Thesaurus-controlled coverage
indexing
 International
coverage
HMIC  UK bias  Expensive
 Specific to health  Updated quarterly
 management  May be difficult to
 Variety of access
documents indexed
 Grey literature
included
Best Evidence  Full text database  No thesaurus control
 Inexpensive  Summaries only
 Disk includes  Full results absent
previous years
 Equivalent of paper
version
Cochrane Library  High quality  Some subject areas
research data under-represented
 Free access in UK  Reviews need
 International updating
collaboration
 Medical and nursing
literature
 Well-structured
information
 Saves time
searching and
appraising