MULTI-DATABASE SEARCHES IN BIOMEDICINE - CITATION DUPLICATION AND NOVELTY ASSESSMENT USING CARBAMAZEPINE AS AN EXAMPLE

The rate of citation duplication and novelty assessment were determine d for a biomedical search in four databases: the in-house database of literature on company pharmaceutical products (CG-DOC), Embase, Medlin e, and Ringdoc. Of the citations that duplicated across any three data bases, 89% had the search term in the title and/or abstract and 86% we re assessed as relevant to the search. Novelty in these relevant citat ions was low; only 15% were novel to the assessor. Citations which wer e retrieved exclusively from one database (unique citations) were also subjected to relevance assessment. Most of the unique citations did n ot contain the search term in the title or abstract. However, novelty was high in these unique citations, especially in citations from the i n-house database. Of the total output, almost a fifth was contributed by individual database. The importance of unique citations in multidat abase searches is discussed.