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Library Guides

Social Work

Library guide for Social Work and Health & Social Care students.

If you want to search all scholarly information the best place to search is a database. Databases include books, journal and magazine articles and conference proceedings. As well as general databases there are also subject specific databases helping to ensure your search is more relevant. You may also consider looking at particular collections of journals or within a specific journal.

To search for relevant articles simply type in your keywords (see 'Search Strategy' page for help with these). 

Databases

AMED

Allied Health database, produced by the British Library, indexing journals in complementary medicine, palliative care and professions allied to medicine, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and podiatry.

Business Source Complete

Scholarly, majority full-text business database. The majority of hits will be full text and others can be checked for full text via Primo using the SFX button.

Campbell Collaboration logo

Campbell Collaboration

The Campbell Collaboration is an international research network that produces systematic reviews in education, crime and justice and social welfare on the effects of social interventions. Search the Campbell Library database to gain access to titles, protocols, systematic reviews and user abstracts.

CINAHL Plus with Full Text

Key health research database covering hundreds of nursing and allied health journals

Cochrane Library

A collection of databases containing high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. It is a source of reliable and up to date information on the effects of interventions and includes systematic reviews, assessments and clinical trials.

MEDLINE (EBSCO)

The premier database for searching the Medical and Healthcare literature.

PsycINFO

The key index to international literature in psychology and related disciplines, covering 1967 to the present day.

PubMed

Web-based medical and health database produced by the US National Institute of Health. Linking from results to full text content is limited and you may be required to search for the journal title in Primo.

SAGE Research Methods logo

SAGE Research Methods

Multi-discipline resource that covers all aspects of conducting research, from key terminology, key research methods and statistics resources with a project planner that takes a researcher through all aspects of the research journey and its terminology.

Scopus

Scopus is a journal indexing and abstracting database with citation metrics from Elsevier. It covers international research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities (with a growing coverage of book chapters).

SocINDEX

SocINDEX with Full Text is a sociology and social science research database. It provides full-text, peer-reviewed sociology journals covering many subjects including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, racial studies, religion and social work. It also covers elements of international relations and world politics.

TRIP database logo

TRIP (Turning Research into Practice)

Practical aspects of health and medical research.

Westlaw

Unless using the personalised service Skip the MyWestlaw login. Westlaw covers UK legislation and a wealth of case law, news, and textbook sources.

Online resources for social workers and social care professionals

Community Care Inform for Children

For full text please sign in, then choose the 'sign in via Shibboleth' option and choose 'Plymouth University' from the drop-down menu. If you experience access issues with logging in please try clearing your cookies and clearing your cache.

Publisher journal collections

If you are unable to find the articles you want through Primo, you could try one of the publisher's journal collections below.  Do remember these are limited to content published by the individual publishers:

Science Direct

Journals published by Elsevier with a strong focus on scientific, technical and medical literature.

Taylor & Francis Online

Multidisciplinary journal publisher with a strong focus on the social sciences. Please note, not every title is within our collection.

Wiley Online Library

Publisher of scientific, technical and medical scholarly literature.