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CareSearch: finding and evaluating Australia's missing palliative care literature
Jennifer J Tieman1, Amy P Abernethy, Belinda S Fazekas
1Department of Palliative and Supportive Services, Flinders University, Adelaide South Australia, Australia. jennifer.tieman@flinders.edu.au
BMC Palliative Care
|August 9, 2005
Summary
The CareSearch project created a publicly accessible database of over 2,500 palliative care resources, including grey literature and unindexed articles. This enhances evidence-based practice and research accessibility in palliative care.
Area of Science:
- Palliative Care Research
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Palliative care evidence is growing but often inaccessible.
- Low conversion rates of conference abstracts to peer-reviewed articles hinder accessibility.
- Need for improved tools to support evidence-based practice (EBP) in palliative care.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify, collect, and evaluate Australia's grey palliative care literature.
- To identify international published literature missing from electronic indexing systems.
- To create a publicly available website (CareSearch) to catalogue and disseminate this literature.
Main Methods:
- Systematic identification and collection of palliative care literature.
- Evaluation of Australian grey literature and international unindexed publications.
- Cataloguing of collected literature for public online access.
Main Results:
- Over 2,500 items catalogued in the CareSearch database.
- Database includes 2,000 conference abstracts, 178 theses/reports, and 410 unindexed journal articles.
- Publicly accessible website with search functionality and tools for practice and research.
Conclusions:
- CareSearch provides a comprehensive evidence resource for palliative care practitioners, educators, and researchers.
- Facilitates integration of knowledge into practice and supports palliative care development.
- Serves as a model for other emerging disciplines in capturing and disseminating literature.