Friday, August 8, 2008

New Database: PsychiatryOnline


Sawyer Library has just added another specialized database--one that will be especially useful to psychology researchers. It is PsychiatryOnline, and it is a product of American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. (APPI).

The APPI self-describes their aggregate as "a powerful web-based portal that features DSM-IV-TR®—the most widely used psychiatric reference in the world—and The American Journal of Psychiatry as the cornerstones of an unsurpassed collection of psychiatric references from American Psychiatric Publishing."

A key selling point is the easy access to the key diagnostic reference set, the DSM® Library. Titles including DSM-IV-TR, DSM-IV-TR Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, and DSM-IV-TR Casebook and its Treatment Companion.

The database also includes several valuable journals, including the American Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. Five peer-reviewed psychiatry journals are in the set, with ten years of backfile. (Be advised that some "deep" backfile issues are not available as part of this database.)

Respected "textbooks" (of the reference variety) are also available on the platform. These include The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry, Gabbard’s Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders and Essentials of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

PsychiatryOnline does not work that well as a searchable database. Instead of allowing a simple keyword or boolean word combination search the way most databases do, it wants your research to match PsychiatryOnline's own controlled vocabulary, or "index entries." This can be inconvenient, but does work. When you click on a subject term, it will default to giving you book content. But in the grey frame to the left, you will see a link to Journal Results.

This is often a large number of results, since the subject terms are broad. You can limit the term to the title or title and abstract of articles using radio buttons below. Or you can limit to specific APPI journals, or limit for date (perhaps only articles published in the last two years).

They describe their quirky search engine at this link.

The good news is that PsychiatryOnline is less about having a searchable database than it is having reliable electronic access--24/7 for anyone with a valid, current Suffolk ID--to several key psychiatry resources. We hope that you find this content useful.

[FIND The PsychiatryOnline on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "
Social Sciences" category.]

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