Historically research has been the preserve of experts and those in the know. Patients have had to accept – or make do without – whatever their clinician has had the time, passion, enthusiasm and knowledge to share. The growth of the internet has been a phenomenal driver of knowledge sharing and democratization. It has led to the growth of the so called ‘expert patient’ and the development of disease self-management groups, many of which are particularly active in chronic disease areas such as liver disease.
Indeed, the Trust was one of the first charities to partner the Department of Health in attempting to develop ‘expert patient programmes’. Better disease self-management through increased knowledge and mutual support are processes which the Trust is extremely keen to foster and develop.
In this spirit we offer the following links to the UK PubMed Central and NHS Evidence.
UK Pub Med Central is the sister site of the world renowned US PubMed Central (PMC) website. UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) provides a stable, permanent, and free-to-access online digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed research publications.
www.ukpmc.ac.uk
The UKPMC system is configured to mirror the data held in PMC. The databases are synchronised twice a day, thus ensuring that content is always up-to-date. As of 1st April 2007 there were over 690,000 full-text articles freely available through UKPMC. You can search widely - for example "alcohol" brings up over 86,000 entries - or you can be more specific.
NHS Evidence, provided by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), is a free to use service providing access to quality assured, credible clinical and non-clinical information about health and social care.
www.evidence.nhs.uk
NHS Evidence contains information in the form of research papers, clinical and public health guidance, NICE guidance, government policy and patient information. Like UKPMC you can search widely – “alcohol” brings up over 12,000 entries – or you can be more specific. All searches give you the option to filter your results further with a wide variety of options available to narrow your search and increase your chances of finding the specific information you are looking for.
There are a couple of points to note. These sites are are predominantly aimed at health care professionals, professional researchers and medical students and you may find the language or ideas are out of your ordinary range. There is a danger that you may misinterpret information which only applies in a range of cases that do not encompass your own circumstances.
However, very positively, these sites let you surf the existing international knowledge base about an area to your heart’s content and allows you to absorb the thinking in that area and possibly provoke new ideas and thoughts in your mind.