External Research Resources

FREE EXTERNAL RESEARCH RESOURCES

Podcasts

Cochrane podcasts. Learn about the latest Cochrane evidence in less than five minutes by listening to the Cochrane podcasts summaries.

The British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) produces a weekly podcast which covers a variety of topics relevant to sports medicine and physiotherapy.

The Physical Therapy Journal (PTJ) podcast produces short interviews with authors that have recently published articles in the Physical Therapy Journal about the research findings and clinical relevance.

The Journal of Sports and Physical Therapy produce 30 minute podcasts with expert clinicians addressing subjects related to physiotherapy in sport


Free access research databases

The free search engines below can be used to locate and access primary research articles related to physiotherapy and rehabilitation.

  • PubMed Central (PMC) - The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. PMC is a free electronic archive of full-text journal articles. PMC contains more than 3 million full-text articles.
  • Google Scholar - Indexes research articles and abstracts from most major academic publishers and repositories worldwide, including both free and subscription sources.
  • Cochrane Library - The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analysis which summarize and interprets the results of medical research.
  • PEDro - PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database. PEDro is a free database of over 37,000 randomised trials, systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy.
  • OMICS - OMICS International is an organization that amalgamates open access publications and International science events for the benefit of the global scientific community. OMICS houses a repository of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation open access journals.
  • Trip Database - A medical search engine with emphasis on evidence based medicine & clinical guidelines and queries. You can search by key word (e.g asthma) which will suggest subheadings (e.g asthma children). You can read about evidence by quality, relevance and timeline. Clinicians are also able to search across other content types including images, videos, patient information leaflets and educational courses.
  • The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) (USA) - A publicly available database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents. Updated weekly with new content, the NGC provides physicians and other health professionals with an accessible mechanism for obtaining objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and to further their dissemination, implementation, and use.
OTHER WAYS TO ACCESS RESEARCH

PNZ members working at DHBs can access medical research databases through the DHB's library. Most DHBs subscribe to Medline, Cinahl and other popular research databases.

If the article you require is not open access and you keep hitting a paywall, then don't fear!

PNZ will order an inter-library loan on your behalf.

Simply complete the electronic form by clicking here and once fully completed press 'done'.  Your request will be automatically saved onto the PNZ system and fulfilled within 24-48 hours (on working days).  Please check a pdf of the full text article is not available using a Google Scholar search before making a request through the PNZ Library. 

Physiotherapy members working at DHBs or academic institutions should check their organisational database subscriptions prior to ordering articles through Physiotherapy New Zealand. Physiotherapy New Zealand incurs a cost for each item inter-loaned.


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Page updated February 2024