Hidden Gems: systematically searching electronic databases for research publications for social work and social care.

Context: Electronic bibliographic databases are a key source for professional publications about social work and community care more generally. This article describes and evaluates a method of identifying relevant articles as part of a systematic review of research evidence. Decision making about institutional and home care services for older people is used as an example. Method: Four databases (Social Science Citation Index, Medline, CINAHL, and Caredata) that abstract publications relevant to health and social services were searched systematically to identify relevant research studies. The items retrieved were appraised independently using a standard form developed for the purpose. The searches were compared in terms of sensitivity, precision, overlap between databases, and inter-rater reliability. Results: The search retrieved 525 articles, of which 276 were relevant. The four databases retrieved 55%, 41%, 19%, and 1% of the relevant articles respectively, achieving these sensitivities with precision levels of 54%, 48%, 84% and 94%. The databases retrieved 116, 73, 24 and 15 unique relevant articles respectively, showing the need to use a range of databases. Discussion: A general approach to creating a search to retrieve relevant research has been developed. The development of an international, indexed database dedicated to literature relevant to social services is a priority to enable progress in evidence-based policy and practice in social work. Editors and researchers should consider using structured abstracts in order to improve the retrieval and dissemination of research.

No Sense of an Ending: Researching the Experience of Imprisonment and Release upon Republican Ex-Prisoners

This article describes an interview-based study of the effects of long-term imprisonment upon 18 Republican ex-prisoners and their families. The interviews followed a biographical, narrative format, drawing from experience of psychiatric assessment of released long-term prisoners. Interpretation of the material was influenced by the sociological literature on imprisonment effects and war trauma. The ex-prisoners had spent an average of 11 years in custody. They described complex experiences of loss, psychological change and social integration, particularly in the area of employment. A decade after release some still had vivid difficulties in coming to terms with the losses of the past and finding purpose for the future. There were parallels between the experiences of this goup and those of war veterans returning home. There is insufficient recognition of these phenomena in previous research on the psychological effects of imprisonment.