Subject Guide: Physical Therapy

Databases are the workhorses of journal article searching. Since research topics can be in found in many different disciplines and in a huge number of journals, using the right database to search across the appropriate variety of journals is crucial.

Read the descriptions and experiment with the ones on this page to learn which are best for your given search effort. What’s right for one search effort might not be for another.

If you already have in mind a database that will be best for your search effort and don’t see it on this page, check All Databases.

PubMed  Go-to resource for many health science professionals. The public search interface for the National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE database, it’s one that will be still accessible after completion of the DPT programs. A large and very comprehensive database that is an excellent place to conduct health science literature research. It searches the MEDLINE database and other journals in health science-related fields. Use this link rather than the link through a Google search to easily see many articles AU subscribes to. Learn the steps in Can’t Find Full-Text? to help find anything else among AU’s subscriptions that PubMed doesn’t provide free access to.

Biomedical Reference Collection* Compare to PubMed. Contains over 4,000 full-text journals covering a variety of disciplines ranging from biomedicine and health sciences to the health care system and pre-clinical sciences.

AccessMedicine* General resources in medical sciences, including some key textbooks in physical therapy, rehabilitation, & sports medicine; interactive Anatomy & Physiology modules; and more.

ClinicalKey* A clinical decision support tool that contains books, articles, drug monographs, clinical guidelines, and patient education materials. Some contents overlap with Science Direct (see below).

ScienceDirect*  Scholarly articles from scientific, technical, and medical journals. A product of the major academic publisher Elsevier.

Journals@Ovid* and Books@Ovid* Scholarly articles and textbooks from scientific, technical, and medical journals.

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition * Over 350 journals on nursing and allied health literature.

AMA Manual of Style* in both print and online versions

Academic Search Ultimate*  A large, academically multidisciplinary article database that is a very good place to start a scholarly literature search.

Psychology Webpage  A list of Landman Library’s mental and behavioral health databases.

Since research topics can be in found in many different disciplines and in a huge number of journals, it’s usually best to use a database like ones above to search for articles. Still, it can be useful to know which are some of the most important journals in a field. Look for other journals in Find a Journal*.

Note: Journals titles can move from publisher to publisher on occasion, and so links can break without advance notice. If one doesn’t work, use Find a Journal* to find a fresh link.

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation*  “A scientific journal including articles written by professionals in the related fields of rehabilitation medicine” (From publisher).

Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery*  “JBJS has been the most valued source of information for orthopaedic surgeons and researchers for over 125 years and is the gold standard in peer-reviewed scientific information in the field.” (From publisher).

Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT)*  “JOSPT publishes scientifically rigorous, clinically relevant content for physical therapists and others in the health care community to advance musculoskeletal and sports-related practice” (From publisher).

Physical Therapy*  “Articles, review articles, book reviews, product reviews and commentary focusing on the evolution and expansion of scientific and professional knowledge related to physical therapy” (From publisher).

In addition to the online texts found in the major databases listed above, Ebook Central* and EBSCO Ebooks * contain thousands of owned and subscribed ebook titles, plus others available for short term loans. Frequently used titles include:

Can’t Find Full-text? No single database provides access to every article or ebook, but we may have a subscription to your journal through a different database. And if we don’t own or subscribe to it, we can almost always get it through Interlibrary Loan. 

We will reply to your inquiries within one working day.