Resources for finding trials
Reports of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have b
een found in the resources listed below for the PRACTIHC project and systematic reviews undertaken for the Cochrane Collaboration, the University of Leeds and Nottingham University. The starred * resources are recommended as a bare minimum set to search.
When selecting a manageable set of resources to search for a review its helpful to consider
- subject matter and scope of the review
- availability of the resource
- time available to undertake searching
- expertise of the searcher
- download features of the resource for reference management
Key
| * | Recommended as the bare minimum sources to be searched for systematic reviews of RCTs |
| (S) | Subscription required. Check if your institution subscribes |
| (International) | Contains reports of trials from a variety of countries or reports of trials that are run across several countries |
| (OA) | Contains Open Access, free full text articles |
This page was last updated in April 2019. This is not a complete list of every source of RCTs. Currency, subscription requirements and open access availability can be difficult to verify, we apologise for any inaccuracies.
Clinical Trials and Research Study Websites and Registers
- *ClinicalTrials.gov(US NIH) (International)
- *ICTRP International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO) (International)
- AstraZeneca
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- CenterWatch (International)
- Drugs@FDA Database (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
- Eli Lilly
- EMA EUDRA CT – European Medicines Agency (European Union)
- EU Clinical trials register
- GlaxoSmithKline
- ISRCTN registry (Biomed Central) (International)
- National Cancer Institute (NIH) (International)
- NIHR UK Clinical Research Network Portfolio
- Novartis
- Pfizer
- Roche
- Trials Central (USA)
- Virtuals Trials
Africa
Asia
- Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (in Chinese and English)
- The Clinical Trials Registry - India
- Japanese Clinical Trial Registry (in Japanese and English)
- Sri Lanka Clinical Trials Registry
Oceania
- Australian Cancer Trials
- Australian Clinical Trials
- Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
- Cancer Trials New Zealand
- New Zealand Clinical Trials Portal
Europe
International Databases
- *Medline – Pubmed or via your Institution's link to Medline (S)
- *Embase (S) or via your Institute’s link to Embase
- *The Cochrane Library
- 3ie International Initiative for Impact Evaluation
- AMED Allied and Complementary Medicine (S)
- BiblioMap- Health promotion research
- BIOSIS Preview (S)
- BNI British Nursing Index (S)
- CINAHL Nursing and Allied Health (S)
- Derwent Drug File (S)
- DoPHER Database of promoting health effectiveness reviews
- Global Health (S)
- MANTIS Alternative medicine (S)
- PASCAL (French) (S)
- PEDro Physiotherapy
- POPLINE Reproductive Health
- PsycINFO Psychiatry and Psychology (S)
- Science Citation Index or via your Institute’s link to ISI Web of Knowledge (S)
- Scopus (S)
- Meta searcher - Trip Database
Grey Literature Resources
- OpenGrey
- HMIC Healthcare Management Information Consortium (UK) (S)
- NTIS National Technical Information Service (USA) (S)
- PsycExtra (S)
- CORDIS (documents and publications on EU research and innovation activities)
- RePORT Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (NIH research projects)
- Google Scholar
- NICE Evidence
- Grey Matters (CADTH)
Regional and National Databases (WHO regions)
Africa
Americas
- LILACS Latin-American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information
- SciELO (FFT) Brazil Scientific Electronic Library Online
Eastern Mediterranean Region
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Europe
- DIMDI German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information. Portal to free and (S) databases
- MedVik portal to database and resources (Czech Republic)
- Magyar Orvosi Bibliográfia (Hungary)
- Russian Medical Server
- Russian Medical Journal
- Panteleimon (Ukraine)
- Hellenic Ph.D. Dissertations Thesis (Greece)
- Medical Bibliography – Hippocrates (Greece)
- ULAKBIM Turkish Academic Network and Information Center
- IBECS (Spain)
- DOCUMED (Spain)
- Information and Documentation of Science in Spain (InDICEs-CSIC) (Spain)
South-East Asia
- IndMED (India MedlarsCentre)
- IMSEAR Index Medicus for South-East Asia Region
- PakMediNet
- Thailand
- AFRIMS Armed Forces Research Institute for Medical Sciences
- Chulalongkorn University Library Information Network
- Khon Kaen University Library Catalogue
- Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Centre
Western Pacific
- HERDIN Health Research and Development Information Network (Philippines) (OA)
- Informit Health Collection (Australia)
- KoreaMED (OA)
China
- CNKI China National Knowledge Infrastructure (including China Academic Journals, China Conference Proceedings, China Dissertations) (S)
- Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM) (S) (Chinese)
- VIP information/ Chinese Scientific Journals Database (S)
- WanFang Data (S)
- Japan
- J-Stage Japanese Science &Technology Information Aggregator Electronic (OA)
- iyakuSearch Clinical Trials Database Japan
- ICHUSHI-Web Japan Medical Abstracts Society (S for full version)
- CiNii National Institute Of Infomatics Japan (OA)
- Medical Online (Meteo, Inc, Japan)
- Webcat Plus (National Institute Of Infomatics Japan)
Other Databases (not verified and may not be accessible)
- IranMedex
- Thai Index Medicus. No trials indexed since 2012
- Thai Journal Citation Index Centre
- Polska Bibliografia Lekarsko (Poland) (S)
- Health System Research Institute (Thailand)
- ThaiLis (not accessible)
- DRIC Digital Research Information Center National Research Council of Thailand (not verified as current)
- Australasian Medical Index (to 2009 only, available as part of Informit Health Collection)
- Chinese Medical Current Content (CMCC) send email to ask about subscription.
Further links and guidance
AUHE Information Specialists Geographic Search Filter: Low and Middle Income Countries (Developing Countries) studies 2003-2020 ODA recipients
Norwegian Satellite of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group. LMIC Databases, a downloadable description of databases, websites and journals relevant to low and middle income countries (LMICs). 2013
Norwegian Satellite of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group. LMIC Filters for MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), PubMed and CENTRAL (Web), based on 2009 World Bank list of LMICs.
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Ayiku L, Levay P, Hudson T, Craven J, Barrett E, Finnegan A, et al. The medline UK filter: development and validation of a geographic search filter to retrieve research about the UK from OVID medline. Health Information & Libraries Journal. 2017;34(3):200-16.
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Formoso G, Font-Pous M, Ludwig WD, Phizackerley D, Bijl D, Erviti J, et al. Drug information by public health and regulatory institutions: Results of an 8-country survey in Europe. Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands). 2017;121(3):257-64.
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Xue J, Chen W, Chen L, Gaudet L, Moher D, Walker M, et al. Significant discrepancies were found in pooled estimates of searching with Chinese indexes versus searching with English indexes. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2016;70:246-53.
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Cohen, J. F., Korevaar, D. A., Wang, J., Spijker, R., & Bossuyt, P. M. (2015). Should we search Chinese biomedical databases when performing systematic reviews?. Systematic reviews, 4(1), 23.
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Stansfield, C., Weightman, A. L., Kavanagh, J., & Johansen, M. (2013). Cochrane update: identifying health-related research resources relevant to low-and middle-income countries. Journal of Public Health, 35(3), 477-480.
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Atsawawaranunt, K., Adams, C. E., & Roberts, S. (2011). Searching for randomised controlled trials and clinical controlled trials in Thai online bibliographical biomedical databases. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 28(1), 68-76.
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Pienaar E, Grobler L, Busgeeth K, Eisinga A, Siegfried N. Developing a geographic search filter to identify randomised controlled trials in Africa: finding the optimal balance between sensitivity and precision. Health Info Libr J. 2011;28(3):210-5.
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Xia J; Wright J; Adams CE. Five large Chinese biomedical bibliographic databases: accessibility and coverage. Health Information & Libraries Journal 2008, 25(1): 55-61
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Chakrabarti A, Adams CE, Rathbone J, Wright J, Xia J, Wong W, Von Reibnitz P, Koenig C, Baier S, Pfeiffer C, et al. Schizophrenia trials in China: a survey. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia 116(1):6-9 Jul 2007
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Abhijnhan A, Surcheva Z, Wright J, Adams CE. Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from Bulgaria: the ABS database. Health Information & Libraries Journal 24(3):200-203 2007
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Almerie MQ, Matar HE, Jones V, Kumar A, Wright J, Wlostowska E, Adams CE. Searching the Polish Medical Bibliography (Polska Bibliografia Lekarska) for trials. Health Information & Libraries Journal 24(4):283-6-283-6 2007
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Kele I, Bereczki D, Furtado V, Wright J, Adams CE. Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from Hungary - the 'Magyar Orvosi Bibliogragia. Health Information & Libraries Journal 22(4):293-295 Dec 2005
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Kumar A, Wright J, Adams CE. Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from the Ukraine: the Panteleimon database. Health Information & Libraries Journal 22(3):223-227 Sep 2005
Further links and guidance
Please send details of additional RCT-holding sources or updated information on the content and currency of listed sources to the AUHE Information Specialists. We aim to update this web page every year. Email
We acknowledge the support of the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group in developing this resource.