Staying Healthy with Your Library: ProQuest Consumer Health Database

This post is part of our Staying Healthy with Your Library series featuring online consumer health resources available from The Seattle Public Library. Databases require a library card number and PIN for remote access.

For general health questions or in-depth research, ProQuest Consumer Health is an easy-to-use database of more than 500 trustworthy medical journals and popular health magazines covering an enormous range of health topics, from sports injuries to women’s health, from food and nutrition to midwifery, from eye care to dentistry.

To access this database from your own device, select ProQuest Consumer Health from our list of Online Resources and sign in with your library card number and PIN.

Here on the Basic Search “homepage” for the database, you’ll see five headings just below Consumer Health Database, including:

• Basic search will allow you to do basic keyword searches for health topics that interest you.
• Advance search allows you to customize your search at the start instead of filtering down your results at the end of the search.
• Publications allows you to look at the hundreds of sources of the health information in the database, including things such as the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. 
• About gives you more information concerning the range of health topics included in the database.
• Change Database allows you to select other ProQuest databases that The Seattle Public Library has access to, including the Coronavirus Research Database, a free health and medical research database for openly available content related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Feel free to explore this “homepage” and the other pages, but no matter which of these you click on, all five will remain at the top of the screen, allowing you to return to the place you’d like to be. Most of your work will be on the “homepage” through Basic Search, and on the results page after entering your search.

The right hand side of the Basic Search “home page” has a number of help features to assist you with using the database. You’ll see search tips at the right hand side of the large white search bar, and below that is the SPL Ask Us link, which will allow you to chat with or email a Library staff person for assistance. Beneath these are some ProQuest help features, and beneath that are some basic tips for searching the database.

Now that you’ve been introduced to the features of the database, let’s look at the very large Google-esque search bar near the top of the Basic Search page. The search bar gives you the option of entering any number of keywords you’d like, as well as selecting the options of looking for “full text” and “peer reviewed” results. Full text indicates that you’ll be able to access the entire article, not just an abstract, or summary. Peer reviewed articles are those that have been reviewed by other experts in an article’s field of study.

Once you’ve entered your search by clicking on the image of the magnifying glass on the right hand side of the search bar, you’ll be taken to a results page, with dozens or hundreds of results.

On the results page, you’ll have previews for the many results listed on the right hand side of the page, including the article title, citation, a preview including your search terms; with options for viewing the abstract and full text of the article. The left hand side of the page allows you to either specify or broaden your search, by adding or removing limits to the search (this can also be done beforehand with advance search), including things like publication date range, language, subject, and so on.

Click on the article you’d like to read. If it’s a full text article, you’ll be able to read it in the database through your internet browser. You can then either select the Back to results to look at other articles in the search results, or look at related articles on the right hand side of the page. The top right of this screen includes options to download, email, cite, and print the article, among other more advanced features.

You’ve done it! These are the basics for using the ProQuest Consumer Health database about as well as your trusty community librarian!

While all Library locations are closed to the public, we will continue to provide the many digital services you have come to love:

• • • e-books and e-audiobooks
    • streaming TV and movie services
    • streaming music services
    • digital subscriptions to newspapers and magazines

You can find all these and more compiled on our Staying Home page. As more library services become available, we will make announcements on our website.

Please be sure to contact us through our Ask Us reference question platform with any questions you may have.

Be well.

~posted by Mychal L.