Get to Know...IDIS

WHAT IS IT?
The Iowa Drug Information Service (IDIS) is a powerful drug information database that indexes more than 200 peer-reviewed English-language journals from medical and pharmaceutical journals. Only articles that cover drug use in humans are included and indexed articles are available online as full text PDF documents from 1988 to the present.

  

WHAT’S IT GOT?
IDIS was established in 1965 as part of the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, and continues to provide access to primary literature and other information supporting drug therapy decision making including: drug studies, practice guidelines, FDA drug approval packages, FDA advisory committee meetings, and FDA black box warnings. IDIS indexes more than 200 journals in a variety of drug-related disciplines including all aspects of medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology and regulatory actions. Entries into the IDIS database are indexed by pharmacists who assign terms that identify the main drugs and diseases from a group of controlled vocabularies and thesauri. The drug vocabulary is based on the United States Adopted Names (USAN) system and organized according to a modified version of the American Hospital Formulary Service (AFHS) pharmacologic classification. Disease vocabulary and thesaurus terms are structured around the International Classification of Diseases, 9^th revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM).  IDIS indexers also assigns descriptors that describe the content by study type, side effects, route of administration, pharmacokinetics, pharmacoeconomics, toxicology, and other important, clinically relevant concepts. While the full text of content is available online from 1988 to the present, older articles are accessible on microfiche in Swilley Library.

All of the fields in the IDIS record are searchable: drugs, diseases, descriptors, title, author, abstract, journal title, article number and sequence number. (Article number and sequence number are unique identifiers tied to the PDF document and the article entry respectively.) Appropriate fields include a “Look Up” feature to ensure that the correct terms are entered. The IDIS thesaurus is also accessible during a search to determine the preferred term for drug, disease or condition. IDIS allows the user to save search queries to execute at a future date and to export results as a text file.

NB: When searching IDIS, be sure to click on Login by IP rather than entering a user name and password.

BOTTOM LINE
Because IDIS covers only drug information from high quality sources and uses a menu of controlled vocabulary terms, the database quickly delivers targeted, relevant results.

WANT MORE HELP?
IDIS has extensive tutorials available online at http://itsnt14.its.uiowa.edu/help/toc.htm

You may also contact me for assistance with this resource and any other research inquiry.
Hannah Rogers -- Librarian Liaison to the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
678 547 6272
rogers_hk@mercer.edu