Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2003; 8: 491–2
In 1991, the RCCM recognised the need for a comprehensive database that drew together the literature on CAM. The resulting CISCOM database provided much of the original data for the CAM field of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Recent funding from the King’s Fund has enabled the database to be developed further, and a specialist CAM thesaurus to be created.
The database is currently running on a networked Mac system using FileMaker Pro software. The citations contain basic bibliographic information, abstracts and links to journals’ websites, library catalogues and other electronic databases providing full-text versions of articles. The Thesaurus, which consists of 340 terms, has been designed with a hierarchical structure that allows for searching at different levels of specificity.
Of the 86 000 records currently in the database, over 10 000 records in the areas of mental health and cancer have been re-indexed using the new Thesaurus. The use of a systematic controlled vocabulary eliminates the existing terminology problems and makes possible the retrieval of all relevant articles on a specific topic.
By creating a specialised CAM thesaurus and related databases for journals, supplementary terms and library catalogues, CISCOM now provides enhanced access to the CAM literature for researchers, practitioners and the public. The CISCOM database is not only one of the major resources for finding the evidence-base for CAM but also for developing it further.
