Resources for Research in Physical Therapy

To find journal articles on physical therapy topics, use an index from the list below. Some indexes contain the full text of a journal article while others provide a citation or abstract of the article.

MEDLINE

The National Library of Medicine's database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. MEDLINE contains citations and author abstracts of articles published in biomedical journals from the United States and 70 other countries. Coverage begins in 1966 on PubMed and in 1965 in EBSCO Medline. Citations and abstracts are provided.

CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)

CINAHL is the main index to journal articles and some full-text publications (selected state nursing journals and newsletters, government publications, research instruments and patient education materials) in nursing and allied health fields including physical therapy and occupational therapy. Currently abstracts for more than 924 journal titles (active and inactive) are available and coverage begins in 1982. The database also includes the references cited in each article since 1994.

Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library consists of several databases providing evidence of the effectiveness of healthcare. The full text of evidence based reviews and publications are updated periodically by scientists and researchers of the Cochrane Collaborative Review Groups. For more help finding systematic reviews, see our library guide Resources for Evidence Based Practice.

Obtaining Articles

Once you've done a database search, you'll see the CSC link to full text which will connect to print or online journals. It will also offer a link to the Interlibrary loan request form, for items not available at CSC.

For additional information about interlibrary loan see Interlibrary Loan.

Books and Reference Books

CLICnet

The online catalog for book holdings of the College of St. Catherine Libraries and 7 other local private colleges in the Cooperating Libaries In Consortium.

MNCat

The online catalog for book holdings of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Also, contains the journal holdings.

WorldCat (password required)

A FirstSearch database which is the book catalog for most academic and public libraries in the US.

Web Resources

In addition to using search engines to retrieve information from the web, here are some PT sites to explore.

American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) (http://www.apta.org)
The professional association's site includes information about membership, practice issues, research, career development, chapters and sections.

Physical Therapist Online (http://www.physicaltherapist.com)
Resources for physical therapists, including links to jobs, chats, email discussion lists, etc.

Physical Therapy-The Web Space (http://www.automailer.com/tws)
Links to text, journals, email lists, diseases and injuries resources.

Physical Therapy Links (http://www.med.und.nodak.edu/depts/pt/current/ptlinks.htm)
From the University of North Dakota, links of interest to pt students.

PT Resources (http://www.mu.edu/chs/pt/ptres.html)
From Marquette University, a good collection of links for PT, medical conditions, anatomy, etc.

AMA Manual

The American Medical Association Manual of Style is often used as a guide for writing and citing sources. A current copy of the AMA manual is located in the reference collection (REF R119 .A533 2007). For a short guide to citing common publication types, see AMA Guidelines for Citing Sources.