IT 7 - InformationSources - MBA

Reliable Sources of Health and Medical Information

Mutiara Budi Azhar, Dr., SU., MMedSc

Faculty of Medicine Sriwijaya University

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

As you need information or conduct research, you will consult different sources of information.

You may be requested to find primary, secondary, or tertiary sources.

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Primary Sources Primary sources are original materials.

have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation.

are original materials on which other research is based.

are usually the first formal appearance of results in physical, print or electronic format.

present original thinking, report a discovery, or share new information.

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Primary Sources. Cont’

The definition of a primary source may vary depending upon the discipline or context.

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Primary Sources. Cont

Examples include: Journal articles published in peer-reviewed publications; Letters; Newspaper articles written at the time; Original Documents (i.e. birth certificate, will, marriage license,

trial transcript); Proceedings of Meetings, conferences and symposia; Records of organizations, government agencies (e.g. annual

report, treaty, constitution, government document); Web site.

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Secondary Sources

are less easily defined than primary sources. are interpretations and evaluations of primary sources. are not evidence, but rather commentary on and

discussion of evidence. However, what some define as a secondary source,

others define as a tertiary source. The definition of a secondary source may vary

depending upon the discipline or context.

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Secondary Sources. Cont’

Examples include: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (also considered

tertiary); Journal articles (depending on the disciple can be

primary); Magazine and newspaper articles (this distinction

varies by discipline); Textbooks (also considered tertiary); Web site (also considered primary)

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Tertiary Sources

consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources. Bibliographies (also considered secondary); Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (also considered

secondary); Indexes, abstracts, bibliographies used to locate primary and

secondary sources; Manuals; Textbooks (also be secondary).

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Use up-to-date evidence

Look for reviews published in the last five years or so, preferably in the last two or three years.

The range of reviews you examine should be wide enough to catch at least one full review cycle, containing newer reviews written and published in the light of older ones and of more-recent primary studies.

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Choosing sources

Plos Medicine and other open access journals can be useful as sources for images.

Some high-quality journals, such as JAMA, publish a few freely readable articles even though most are not free.

A few high-quality journals, such as PLoS Medicine, publish only freely readable sources.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

When searching for biomedical sources, it is wise to skim-read everything available, including abstracts of papers that are not freely readable, and use that to get a feel for what reliable sources are saying.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Biomedical journals

contains two major types of sources: primary publications describe novel research for the first time and review articles summarize and integrate a topic of research into an overall view.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Biomedical journals

In medicine, primary sources include clinical trials, which test new

treatments; secondary sources include meta-analyses, which

combine the results of many clinical trials in an attempt to arrive at an overall view of how well a treatment works.

It is usually best to use reviews and meta-analyses where possible, as these give a balanced and general perspective of a topic—and are usually easier to understand!

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Peer reviewed medical journals are a natural choice as a source for up-to-date medical information.

not all the material is equally useful, and some, such as a letter from a non-expert, should be avoided.

Journal articles come in many types: original research, reviews, case reports, editorials, and op-ed pieces, advocacy pieces, speculation, book reviews, letters to the editor and other forms of commentary or correspondence.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Biomedical journals

There are at least 141 journals suitable for a small medical library. Although this list is no longer maintained, the listed journals are of high quality.

The core general medical journals include the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Annals of Internal Medicine, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Books

Medical textbooks published by academic publishers are often excellent secondary sources.

Ensure that the book is up to date, unless a historical perspective is required.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Books

Major academic publishers (e.g., Elsevier, Springer Verlag, Wolters Kluwer, and Informa) publish specialized medical book series with good editorial oversight; volumes in these series summarize the latest research in narrow areas, usually in a more extensive format than journal reviews.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Books

Specialized biomedical encyclopaedias published by these established publishers are often of good quality, but as a tertiary source, the information may be too terse for detailed articles.

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Choosing sources. Cont’

Books

Popular science and medicine books are useful tertiary sources, but there are exceptions: Most self-published books or books published by

vanity presses undergo no independent fact-checking or peer review and, consequently, are not reliable sources.

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Medical and scientific organizations

Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include the U.S. National Academies

(including the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences), the British National Health Service, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization.

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Medical and scientific organizations. Cont’

The reliability of these sources range from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature.

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Popular press

generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles.

generally lack the context to judge experimental results; tend to overemphasize the certainty of any result, for instance, presenting a new and experimental treatment as "the cure" for a disease or an every-day substance as "the cause" of a disease.

may also publish articles about scientific results before those results have been published in a peer reviewed journal or reproduced by other experimenters.

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Other Sources

Peer reviewed medical information resources such as WebMD, UpToDate, Mayo Clinic, and eMedicine are usually acceptable sources in themselves, and can be useful guides about the relevant medical literature and how much weight to give different sources.

However, as much as possible we should cite the more established literature directly.

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Searching for sources

Search engines are commonly used to find biomedical sources.

PubMed is an excellent starting point for locating peer reviewed medical sources. It offers a free search engine for accessing the MEDLINE database of biomedical research articles offered by the National Library of Medicine at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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There are basic and advanced options for searching PubMed; Clicking on the "Review" tab will help narrow the search to review articles. The classification scheme includes about 70 types

of documents. For medical information, the most useful types of

articles are typically labeled "Guideline", "Meta-analysis", "Practice guideline", or "Review".

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Thank you very much for your kind attention

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References

1. University of Maryland Libraries (2001) Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources.

2. Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary Sources. James Cook University.

3. Young JM, Solomon MJ (2009). How to critically appraise an article. Nat Clin Pract Gastroenterol Hepatol 6 (2): 82–91.

4. Greenhalgh T (1997). "How to read a paper: Papers that summarize other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses)". BMJ 315 (7109): 672–5.

5. http://www.midrealm.org/starleafgate/Documents/Primary.pdf

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