Free access to the Cochrane Library for everyone in India
Anyone in India with access to the Internet now has complementary access to reliable, up-to-date evidence on health care interventions from The Cochrane Library, thanks to sponsorship provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that recently signed a three-year contract for a national subscription with the publishers, John Wiley & Sons.
The Cochrane Library (available at
www.thecochranelibrary.com) is considered by many to be the single most reliable source for evidence on the effects of health care interventions. It includes seven databases that are updated quarterly, four of which are the efforts of the 15,000 international contributors of the Cochrane Collaboration (
www.cochrane.org).
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews currently contains 4655 regularly-updated systematic reviews and protocols of reviews in preparation
The Cochrane Controlled Trials Register currently contains references, mostly with abstracts, of more than 48,900 controlled clinical trials- easily the largest collection of such trials in the world
The Cochrane Database of Methodology Reviews contains 22 systematic reviews of the science of reviewing evidence
The Cochrane Methodology Register contains the bibliography of 9048 articles that could be relevant to anyone preparing systematic reviews.
The three other databases in The Cochrane Library include the:
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, summaries of 5931 systematic reviews published elsewhere and quality appraised by the UK National Health Service (NHS) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
Health Technology Assessment Database that contains details of 6358 completed and ongoing health technology assessments
NHS Economic Evaluation Database that contains 20,292 abstracts of quality assessed economic evaluations from around the world.
Also available is information about the Cochrane Collaboration. One can search for interventions or health conditions across all these databases using free text terms or medical subject headings (MeSH).
From 29 January 2007 the Cochrane Library is freely available to all residents of India with Internet access thanks to funding from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) (www.ICMR.nic.in), and work of the South Asia Cochrane Network (www.cochrane-sacn.org).
Information courtesy:
Dr. Rashmi Vyas
Associate Professor
Dept. Of Physiology
Christian medical College,
Vellore-632002
Tamil Nadu
India
