WHERE SHOULD THE PHARMACY RESEARCHER LOOK FIRST - COMPARING INTERNATIONAL-PHARMACEUTICAL-ABSTRACTS AND MEDLINE

This study compared the usefulness of various CD-ROM versions of inter national Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA) and MEDLINE for pharmacy resea rch. Journal coverage as well as the strengths and weaknesses of datab ase structure and contents were considered. The journals indexed in ea ch database were compared to those identified in a survey of the resea rch journals most important to University of Maryland at Baltimore pha rmacy faculty and in a similar North Carolina study rating pharmacy jo urnals. Ln addition, indexed journals were checked against the Institu te for Scientific Information's mast recent !ist of high-impact journa ls in pharmacology and pharmacy. Searches representing a variety of to pics relevant to pharmacy were conducted in both databases, and the nu mber and relevance of citations located were analyzed. Results showed that IPA indexed a greater number of pharmacy titles, but that MEDLINE indexed more pharmacy journals designated in studies as significant t o the field. There was little overlap in coverage between the two data bases, MEDLINE produced larger retrievals for the majority of question s, but many citations retrieved in IPA did not appear in MEDLINE.