Social Work Resources

Welcome to the Graduate College of Social Work Research Guide! Within this guide, you will find information and links to Social Work related resources that you may find useful for your classwork and research.

Scholarly Articles

This page provides links to journals where you can find articles and clinical information to help you with your research.

Recommended Resources

Social Work & Related Disciplines Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 9,810 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Education Source This link opens in a new window
This database offers the world's largest and most complete collection of full-text education journals, and encompasses an international array of English-language periodicals, monographs, yearbooks, and many unique sources that were never previously available, covering all levels of education--from early childhood to higher education--as well as all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education and testing.
Encyclopedia of Social Work This link opens in a new window
A continuously updated online collaboration between the National Association of Social Workers (NASW Press) and Oxford University Press (OUP). Incudes 400+ overview articles on key topics from international issues to ethical standards, 200+ biographies on key figures, and references and links to related social work resources.
ERIC (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
ERIC, the Educational Resource Information Center, provides access to education literature and resources. The database provides access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. ERIC provides full text of more than 2,200 digests along with references for additional information and citations and abstracts from over 1,000 educational and education-related journals.
Policy File Index This link opens in a new window
Policy File Index is a unique resource for U.S. public policy research. Users are able to access timely, updated information from over 350 public policy think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, research institutes, university centers, advocacy groups, and other entities.
PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
APA PsycInfo, American Psychological Association’s (APA) renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains approximately 3 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with DOIs for over 1.4 million records. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to present, includes international material selected from around 2,400 periodicals in dozens of languages.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a good starting point for finding articles on almost any topic. It contains over 47,000,000 records to scholarly publications, trade publications and conference proceedings. Scopus is an excellent database for cited reference searching. It does not contain full text articles, but users can get access to full text by using the Get It button.
Social Science Research Network This link opens in a new window
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection containing downloadable full text documents. Author-submitted content is downloadable at no charge by users world-wide.
Social Work Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the core social work and human services literature, providing indexing and abstracts for >450 journals. The database is updated rather slowly - use SocIndex with Full Text for the most current research.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers scholarly publications in sociology, social work, and related fields. Contains 2.3 million articles and other materials (64% in full text) with deep coverage from 1960 and some back to 1882.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science is a comprehensive research platform. Journal articles, patents, websites, conference proceedings, Open Access material—all can be accessed through one interface, using a variety of powerful search and analysis tools. Web of Science Core Collection is a painstakingly selected, actively curated database of the journals that researchers themselves have judged to be the most important and useful in their fields

See all social work databases here.

Evidence-Based Practice Databases

CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to health science literature related to nursing and allied health disciplines. In addition, it includes standards of practice and evidence-based care guidelines.
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
The Cochrane Library is the gold standard for evidence-based research to inform healthcare decision making. It is a collection of databases including the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials.

PubMed Clinical Queries
PubMed Clinical Queries allows you to quickly and easily search for relevant clinical literature on etiology, prognosis, diagnosis and therapy of diseases and diagnostics. PubMed Clinical Queries is designed to filter one search by three clinical research areas: Clinical Study Categories, Systematic Reviews, and Medical Genetics.

Biomedicine Databases

PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed® comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
MEDLINE (PubMed) This link opens in a new window
PubMed® comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
This multidisciplinary resource indexes thousands of Elsevier journals and books. Full text is available for some of these publications. It is especially strong in topics related to the sciences, medicine, and technology.
EMBASE This link opens in a new window
EMBASE is a major biomedical and pharmaceutical database indexing over 3,500 international journals in the following fields: drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, clinical and experimental human medicine, health policy and management, public health, occupational health, environmental health, drug dependence and abuse, psychiatry, forensic medicine, and biomedical engineering/instrumentation. There is selective coverage for nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, psychology, and alternative medicine.

Dissertations & Theses Databases

Dissertations & Theses at University of Houston (2010-Present) This link opens in a new window
The University of Houston Libraries collect and make publicly available all electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) produced in UH graduate and PhD programs through the UH institutional repository.
Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Online access to 8 ProQuest dissertations & theses databases : Dissertations & Theses @ University of Houston, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Business, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Health & Medicine, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Health & Medicine, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: History, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Literature & Language, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Science & Technology, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Social Sciences, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: The Arts.

Clinical Tools

UpToDate This link opens in a new window
A point-of-care clinical resource. Useful for quick information about conditions, drugs, etc.
DynaMed This link opens in a new window
DynaMed is a clinical reference tool of more than 3000 topics designed for physicians and health care professionals for use primarily at the point-of-care. DynaMed is updated daily and monitors the content of over 500 medical journal and systemic evidence review databases.

Top Social Work Journals

The journals listed below are the top 5 ranked journals for Social Work based on 5-year impact factors as described in Journal Citation Reports for the subject: 'Social Work'

These journal titles are supplied to give you the opportunity to browse the literature, see samples of work in the field, and give you names to look out for in this subject area.

For any kind of in depth searching, however, you'll want to use a database to search across many journals.

What is a library database?

Your instructor or subject librarian may throw around the term "library database" a lot, but what exactly do they mean? This video from the University of Houston Libraries explains the term and how you can use databases for research.

Transcript available through YouTube.

Remote Access

You can access UH Libraries' online resources from anywhere!

To access online resources (e.g. databases, articles) while off campus, you will be asked to log in with your CourgarNet account. Once you log in, you will be redirected to the online resource you selected. You must be a current student, faculty, or staff.

If you do not know your CougarNet account information, then please contact UIT Support Center at:

713-743-1411

or chat with a support representative.

If you have any difficulties accessing UH Libraries' online resources, please use this form to let us know!

University of Houston Libraries

Social Work Resources

Scholarly Articles

Recommended Resources

Top Social Work Journals

What is a library database?

Remote Access

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