Adverse drug effects: evaluation of four secondary reference sources.

Four adverse drug effect abstracting services, Adverse Drug Reaction Index, Clin-Alert, Current Drug Experience Literature, and Reactions were evaluated. Each service was evaluated in terms of the total number of articles cited, cost per citation, lag time, and time requirements for searches. The Adverse Drug Reaction Index was found to retrieve the most total and unique citations. Its potential disadvantages included the longest lag time and a high overall cost for the system. Reactions provided an alternative to this service, although it provided fewer total and unique citations. However, its overall costs is less, and the lag time is shorter. Clin-Alert ad Current Drug Experience Literature provided significantly fewer citations than the other services. Both services did retrieve unique citations.