The Health and Wellness Resource Center: a database for psychology?

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Behavioral Sciences

Background:

• Psychology researchers commonly depend on PsycINFO as their primary bibliographic tool.
• Reliance on a single database can restrict the scope of literature reviews.
• Alternative databases are often underutilized in the social and behavioral sciences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of an adjutant bibliographic database.
• To demonstrate how supplementary databases can improve literature search comprehensiveness.
• To encourage broader database utilization among social and behavioral scientists.

Main Methods:

• Comparative analysis of search results from PsycINFO and an adjutant database.
• Literature review simulation to assess citation retrieval differences.
• Qualitative assessment of the value added by the supplementary resource.

Main Results:

• The adjutant database yielded unique and relevant citations not found in PsycINFO.
• Integrating an additional database significantly increased the number of relevant references.
• The supplementary tool proved valuable for comprehensive literature searches.

Conclusions:

• PsycINFO should not be the sole resource for psychology literature reviews.
• Utilizing adjutant databases enhances the depth and breadth of research.
• Social and behavioral scientists benefit from diversifying their bibliographic search strategies.