Online searching for human nutrition: an evaluation of databases.

This study compares six databases which contain information on applied and clinical human nutrition: AGRICOLA, BIOSIS, CAB ABSTRACTS, EMBASE, MEDLINE, and SCI-SEARCH. Five research questions were searched, and the results were compared to identify the database of first choice and to determine the degree of overlap among the databases. Results indicate that for most of the human nutrition questions searched, MEDLINE was the most productive database. However, MEDLINE alone only uncovered 24% to 69% of the citations available. A combination of MEDLINE and at least one other database is recommended. The results of this study suggest that for most human nutrition questions, AGRICOLA is the best file to complement MEDLINE.