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Not published, not indexed: issues in generating and finding hospice and palliative care literature.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Accessing new knowledge as the evidence base for hospice and palliative
care grows has specific challenges for the discipline. This study aimed to describe
conversion rates of palliative and hospice care conference abstracts to journal articles
and to highlight that some palliative care literature may not be retrievable because
it is not indexed on bibliographic databases. METHODS: Substudy A tracked the journal
publication of conference abstracts selected for inclusion in a gray literature database
on www.caresearch.com.au . Abstracts were included in the gray literature database
following handsearching of proceedings of over 100 Australian conferences likely to
have some hospice or palliative care content that were held between 1980 and 1999.
Substudy B looked at indexing from first publication until 2001 of three international
hospice and palliative care journals in four widely available bibliographic databases
through systematic tracing of all original papers in the journals. RESULTS: Substudy
A showed that for the 1338 abstracts identified only 15.9% were published (compared
to an average in health of 45%). Published abstracts were found in 78 different journals.
Multiauthor abstracts and oral presentations had higher rates of conversion. Substudy
B demonstrated lag time between first publication and bibliographic indexing. Even
after listing, idiosyncratic noninclusions were identified. DISCUSSION: There are
limitations to retrieval of all possible literature through electronic searching of
bibliographic databases. Encouraging publication in indexed journals of studies presented
at conferences, promoting selection of palliative care journals for database indexing,
and searching more than one bibliographic database will improve the accessibility
of existing and new knowledge in hospice and palliative care.
Type
Journal articleSubject
Abstracting and Indexing as TopicAccess to Information
Australia
Databases, Bibliographic
Hospice Care
Humans
Information Storage and Retrieval
MEDLINE
Palliative Care
Periodicals as Topic
Research
User-Computer Interface
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3296Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1089/jpm.2009.0273Publication Info
Tieman, Jennifer J; Abernethy, Amy; & Currow, David C (2010). Not published, not indexed: issues in generating and finding hospice and palliative
care literature. J Palliat Med, 13(6). pp. 669-675. 10.1089/jpm.2009.0273. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3296.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Amy Pickar Abernethy
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine
Amy P. Abernethy, MD PhDDirector, Center for Learning Health Care Director, Duke Cancer
Care Research Program Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Medical
Oncology, Duke University School of Medicine Associate Professor of Nursing, Duke
University School of NursingDr. Abernethy, a hematologist/oncologist and palliative
care physician, is Professor of Medicine in the Duke University School of Medicine,
Director of the Duke Center for Learn
This author no longer has a Scholars@Duke profile, so the information shown here reflects
their Duke status at the time this item was deposited.

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