PHAR 319

Drug Delivery 2

Recommended Books for Product Poster:

• Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients
• Encyclopedia of Pharmaceutical Technology (online), also available in print

Other Starting Points

• Stat!Ref: Search the contents of many books online, including AHFS Drug Information. Bibliography will likely contain reference to manufacturer.
• Drug Facts and Comparisons: Do go here and look up your drug. Be sure to note the active ingredient that displays at the top of the monograph. You may need to search using the active ingredient rather than the brand name.
• Micromedex:Call the Reference Desk at 591-3602 for password

Primary Sources Explained

Primary sources for health and medicine tend to be original research articles, such as clinical studies and randomized controlled trials. When reading a primary source, the methodology, research, and results suggest that the author(s) were actively involved in working with patients or other test subjects/materials to analyze and report the outcomes.

To clarify what primary sources are, please click here to see a guide produced by James Cook University.

Finding Primary Sources

See a video tutorial for finding primary sources in PubMed (12 minutes)

1. Go to PubMed and click on Limits
   

2. Type in your search term. For this page Gliadel Wafers will be used as an example. If your product has more than one word in its name, you may want to put your search in quotes so the words are searched side-by-side, so in this case "Gliadel Wafers" or "Gliadel Wafer" was used (Note, both singular and plural forms of wafer used). Note: As mentioned earlier, you may have to use the active ingredient to get results, but start with the brand name.
   

3. Scroll down the Limits screen, and under Type of Article, select articles types: Clinical Trial, Randomized Controlled Trial, Comparative Study, Controlled Clinical Trial, Evaluation Studies, Multicenter Study, and Twin Study - These are all Primary Research
   

4. You are now ready to click on Search.
   

5. Your results list will appear, along with a Limits Activated notification above the results indicating the limits you placed on your search.
   

6. To get the full text of one of the primary research articles, click into the record. When you are in the record you will notice the Find It link. Click on the Find It button, and see how the article is available.
   

7. After clicking on Find It, click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See image below.

   Sample Article Link-Out:

   

8. Finally, you may want to revise your search if you did not get the results you were expecting. You may have found a different keyword that works better (scroll to the bottom of the screen when in an article record and see if there are other terms that mean the same thing, and read the abstracts/articles). In the case of "Gliadel Wafers" or "Gliadel Wafer", when the search was modifed to Gliadel, the number of records increased from 14 to 26 results. When the search was changed to Carmustine (wafer or wafers) - (Carmustine is the active ingredient), 27 results were found. Trying an abbreviation noted while reading results, a search on BCNU (wafer or wafers) yielded 28 results. So, play around with your search terms and examine the different results.

FDA

• FDA website: Don't forget to check the FDA's website for product information. Use the search box in the upper right-hand corner to find product information, and get a more focused results list by searching in The FDA Approved Drug Products Database. If you see a link that says Label Information, click on that link to be taken to the package insert (also known as prescribing information).

Sample Bibliography

Also called a Works Cited or References list, this document should cite all information sources used to complete your project. Please see the Sample Bibliography in APA format with some "creative licensing" for citation styles for package inserts and drug monographs

Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315

Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.

Last update: Jan. 15, 2011