Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from Bulgaria: the ABS database

• Published in: Health information and libraries journal Vol. 24; no. 3; pp. 200 - 203
• Main Authors: Abhijnhan, Akhil, Surcheva, Zhenya, Wright, Judy, Adams, Clive E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-09-2007
• Subjects: Abstracting and Indexing as Topic - standards; Access to Information; Bibliographic databases; Bulgaria; Citations; Clinical trials; Databases, Bibliographic; Health administration; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Medicine; MEDLINE; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Bulgaria
• ISSN: 1471-1834; 1471-1842
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2007.00723.x

Background:  The University of Sofia, Bulgaria, disseminates local biomedical literature (1994 to present) through a free online database, ABS.
Objectives:  Our objectives were to systematically search ABS, identify citations to controlled trials and discover what proportion of these studies are to be found on medline.
Methods:  We searched using Bulgarian and English phrases; manually selected citations of controlled trials and sought these citations on medline.
Results:  Using the two languages, we found a total of 628 unique citations, 47 of which seem to be relevant controlled trials (precision 7.48%, 13% of ABS citations were found on medline). The trials in ABS commonly focused on evaluation of care for people with cardiovascular or urological problems.
Discussion: ABS is another source of easily accessed trials not readily available elsewhere.