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Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on November 11, 2005
Occupational Medicine 2006 56(1):39-45; doi:10.1093/occmed/kqi193
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Searching bibliographic databases for literature on chronic disease and work participation

Joke Haafkens1, Clara Moerman2, Merel Schuring1 and Frank van Dijk1

1 Academic Medical Centre, Coronel Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 Department of General Practice, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Background The work participation of people with chronic diseases is a growing concern within the field of occupational medicine. Information on this topic is dispersed across a variety of data sources, making it difficult for health professionals to find relevant studies for literature reviews and guidelines.

Aim The goal of this project was to identify bibliographic databases and search terms that could be most useful for retrieving relevant studies on this topic.

Methods Five broad questions regarding work participation and chronic disease were formulated, focusing on angina pectoris, depression, diabetes mellitus, hearing impairment and rheumatoid arthritis. A search strategy for retrieving information on these questions was developed and run in five bibliographic databases: Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cinahl and OSHROM. Relevant publications were selected from the search results. The utility of the selected databases and search terms was evaluated by analysing the number of relevant publications that were retrieved.

Results The number of relevant publications retrieved from each database varied. Most (84%) of the relevant publications that were retrieved from each database were unique to that source. For each database, specific search terms for the concept of ‘work’ were useful for retrieving relevant publications.

Conclusion Medline, EMBASE and PsycINFO are useful databases for quick searches. Useful search terms for the concept of ‘work’ are work capacity, work disability, vocational rehabilitation, occupational health, sick leave, absenteeism, return to work, retirement, employment status and work status. For comprehensive searches, we recommend additional searches in Cinahl and OSHROM, adapting the search terms to specific databases.

Keywords      Bibliographic databases; chronic disease; occupational health; search strategies; search terms; work disability

Correspondence to: Joke Haafkens, Coronel Institute, Academic Medical Centre, Meibergdreef 15, Amsterdam 1105AZ, The Netherlands. Tel: +0031205667291; e-mail: j.a.haafkens{at}amc.uva.nl


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