Searching for rehabilitation articles on MEDLINE and EMBASE. An example with cross-over design

Objective: To analyze the usefulness of MEDLINE and EMBASE biomedical datab ases in rehabilitation and to identify descriptors and text words necessary to do a comprehensive search. Methods: We looked for articles published since 1990 relating to neurologic , orthopedic, respiratory, urologic, and rheumatologic rehabilitation. We l ooked for all descriptors and text words pertinent to rehabilitation and li nked them with "cross-over.") Results: We found 165 articles in MEDLINE and 159 in EMBASE with an overlap of only 17% of articles. Only 32% of the articles in MEDLINE and 35% in EM BASE were relevant. Of the 214 nonoverlapping articles, 84% were published in journals present in both databases, but were indexed differently. Conclusion: At least two databases must be used to ensure a comprehensive l iterature search. Searching in EMBASE after MEDLINE we gained 25 articles ( 32%). Bibliographic search in rehabilitation is particularly complex becaus e of the heterogeneity of the subject matter. Cooperation between an inform ation professional and a clinician is essential to ensure a comprehensive s earch.