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Health Services Management: Where to Search

This guide will help health services management students find relevant resources for their studies.

Choosing where to search

 

While planning your search is essential- it's also important to know what type of information you are looking for, as it will help you decide where to search.

Different types of information can be found in different places, for example:

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Books

Useful for providing an overview of a topic or issue. Contains background information and context and is very useful as a starting point for research - especially if you are new to a topic!

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Journal Articles

Contains the latest research on very specific topics and often contains in-depth analysis. Journal articles are published more quickly than books so can be used to find more up to date information.

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Grey Literature

This includes government or non-government organisation (NGO) reports, guidelines and statistics. They often contain an overview of an issue as it applies to a specific region, state, country or worldwide.

This page will go over finding books and journal articles. Have a look at the grey literature page for finding reports and other unpublished materials.

Finding books

 

Books and textbooks provide broad overviews of a topic and are a great place to start if you're new. The best place to find books is by using the Library catalogue.

Watch the video below for a demonstration of how to search for books on the library website.

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Tips

  • Sign in to see all results.
  • Keep it simple! Search using a few keywords, don't put in a whole sentence. 

How to read a library record:

Finding journal articles

 

Journal articles are one way in which you can find in-depth analysis on particular topics. While you can find some journal articles by using the Library catalogue, we recommend you look in a discipline-specific database like Medline, CINAHL or Embase.

Have a look at our database searching tutorials below for some database-specific tips!

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Tips

  • Peer-reviewed means the article has been checked by a panel of experts before being published. Some databases allow you to refine by this option (e.g. CINAHL) while other databases only contain peer-reviewed information (e.g. Medline).
  • Many health databases have two ways to search - by using keywords or subject headings. They are essentially tags which describe an article's topics in a standardised way. To find out more, check out the Evidence-Based Practice guide.
  • If you are getting too many results, try taking out some of your keywords or use more specific keywords.
  • If you aren't getting enough results, try adding more general terms to your search (e.g. if you are looking for 'dyslexia' add 'learning disability').
  • You can also look at relevant readings you have found to get ideas for more keywords and subject headings.