InfoGuides: Social Work: Find Articles

Key Databases

SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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Offers a broad coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study. Provides access to journals, books, dissertations, reports, conference proceedings, and author profiles. Subjects include abortion, criminology and criminal justice, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, political sociology, religion, social work, sociological research and theory.
Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes more than 3,000 journals across 55 social science disciplines, as well as selected items from 3,500 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. Covers from 1900 to the present. Part of Web of Science.
Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services and related areas, including social welfare, social policy and community development. Abstracts and indexes serials publications, includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and provides citations to book reviews.
Social Work Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers more than 450 social work and human services journals, spanning 1965 to the present, on all aspects of the social work field, including theory and practice, areas of service, and social issues and problems. Topics include homelessness, AIDS, child and family welfare, substance abuse and more.
APA PsycInfo (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, and other areas. Includes more than 3.7 million records.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Comprises over 27 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations and abstracts include the fields of biomedicine and health, covering portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. Provides access to additional relevant web sites and links to the other NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) molecular biology resources.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text to journals in the fields of nursing and allied health, with indexing back to 1937. Includes access to health care books, nursing dissertations, conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, Evidence-Based Care Sheets, legal cases, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials. Subject coverage includes nursing, biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
AgeLine This link opens in a new window
References and original abstracts for materials related to aging and middle age, from an interdisciplinary perspective of psychology, economics, sociology, gerontology, public policy, business, health and health care services, and consumer issues. Publication ranges from 1978 to present with selective coverage from 1966-1977.
Violence and Abuse Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Provides bibliographic records covering essential areas related to violence and abuse, including family violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.

Congress.gov This link opens in a new window
A service of the Library of Congress that makes federal legislative information freely available. Features and content include: bills and resolutions, the Congressional Record, committee reports, information on treaties, teacher resources, and more. Formerly THOMAS.
FindPolicy.org This link opens in a new window
Search across leading think tanks in a policy area. Search engines within FindPolicy include: Climate, Economy, Development, Foreign Policy, and general Public Policy. There are also country-level and regional searches.
Harvard Kennedy School Think Tank Search This link opens in a new window
Search across over 600 think tank websites using this custom Google search.
Kaiser Family Foundation This link opens in a new window
Global and domestic health data, policy analyses, and in depth policy news coverage maintained by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Search state and global health facts databases covering HIV/AIDS and other diseases, as well as key health and socio-economic indicators. Includes infographics, interactive data, video and additional formats.
Policy File Index This link opens in a new window
Access domestic and foreign public policy research and analytical papers on governmental and legal topics, representing the work of think tanks, research groups, and academic institutes from 1990 to present.

Criminal Justice Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides comprehensive coverage of the major journals in criminology and related disciplines, extensive coverage of books, and unparalleled access to reports from government and nongovernmental agencies.
Education Research Complete This link opens in a new window
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Covers all aspects of education including multilingual education, health education, testing, curriculum instruction, administration, policy, funding, and all levels of education from early childhood to higher education. Provides indexing for over 1,800 journals, as well as full-text for over 900 journals, 81 books, and numerous education-related conference papers.
Global Health This link opens in a new window
Provides information on international health, biomedical life sciences, non-communicable diseases, public health nutrition, food safety and hygiene, and more. Contains more than 1.4 million records dating back to 1973.
LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
Provides broad coverage of the world's LGBTQ literature, for both academic and lifestyle publications. Covers historically significant journals, magazines, and regional newspapers, both mainstream and grey, and hundreds of books and reference works. Topics include sociology, culture, civil liberties, individual lives, family, community, employment, history, politics, psychology, and religion.

Campbell Systematic Reviews-Campbell Collaboration Campbell systematic reviews follow structured guidelines and standards for summarizing the international research evidence on the effects of interventions in crime and justice, education, international development, and social welfare.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Provides full-text, peer-reviewed journals, as well as indexing and abstracts for monographs, reports, and conference proceedings. Features content going back as far as 1887.
Web of Science: Core Collection This link opens in a new window
Contains citations and searchable author abstracts, covering scholarly literature in journals, books and conference proceedings. Includes: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Book Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index, Current Chemical Reactions, Index Chemicus, and Emerging Sources Citation Index. Additional resources available by selecting from the dropdown list next to the Core Collection heading.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a collection of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences digitized in most cases back to the first date of issue. Includes selected books, primary sources and other materials for academic work.

Campbell Systematic Reviews-Campbell Collaboration
Campbell systematic reviews follow structured guidelines and standards for summarizing the international research evidence on the effects of interventions in crime and justice, education, international development, and social welfare.

Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
Consists of six databases that contain different types of independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.

Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development
Identifies various federal and private agencies that have rated the effectiveness of prevention programs designed to reduce or eliminate problem behaviors such as delinquency, aggression, violence, substance use, school behavioral problems, mental health problems, and risk factors identified as predictive of these problems.
NASW EBP Resources
Includes definition of Evidence Based Practice and list of resources specific to social workers
SAMHSA Evidence Based Practices Resource Center
Contains a collection of scientifically-based resources for a broad range of audiences, including Treatment Improvement Protocols, toolkits, resource guides, clinical practice guidelines, and other science-based resources.
Social Programs That Work
Maintained by Laura and John Arnold Foundation’s (LJAF) Evidence-Based Policy team

image of EBP pyramid

Systematic reviews ask a specific clinical question, perform a comprehensive literature search, eliminate the poorly done studies and attempt to make practice recommendations based on the well-done studies. A meta-analysis is a systematic review that combines all the results of all the studies into a single statistical analysis of results.

Critically-appraised individual articles evaluate and synopsize individual research studies, while critically-appraised topics evaluate and synthesize multiple research studies.

Case control studies looks at two groups retrospectively--one with the condition and one without-- to determine causes and natural history. Cohort studies are longitudinal studies that follow two groups (a control group and a group the condition of intervention of interest) over time. Randomized controlled double blind studies are the gold standard for medical evidence.

PRISMA PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. It is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Includes a checklist and flow diagram for planning a systematic review
Center for Evidence Based Practice Johns Hopkins University JHNEBP Includes rating scales, appraisal tools and more

Key Journals in Social Work

Child Maltreatment
Peer-reviewed journal of the APSAC for practitioners and researchers on scientific information and technical innovations about child maltreatment (medicine, abuse, nursing, child protection,etc).
Family Relations
Peer-reviewed journal providing research on family studies including intervention, education, and public policy. Considered key literature for practitioners, family therapists, researchers, and social policy specialists.
Health & Social Work
Peer-reviewed journal covering the latest advances in aging, oncology, long-term care, depression, substance abuse, etc. Covers training, research, policy, and quality assurance.
Social Work: A Journal of the National Association of Social Workers
Peer-reviewed journal focusing on evaluating techniques and research, examining social problems, and critical analysis on issues in the social work profession. Publication of NASW.
Social Work in Health Care
Peer-reviewed journal publishing literature on social work theory, practice and administration.