LibGuides: Psychology: Journals Databases

Why you should use journal articles

In academic writing, it is essential to support your discussions and arguments with reliable, published sources. Personal opinions such as 'I believe...' are not sufficient on their own: you must back up your claims with credible evidence from academic literature.

This evidence is usually published as an academic journal article. These sources are typically found in academic databases and, in some cases, through platforms like Google Scholar. Using these resources ensures you access high-quality, relevant information. The Library provides these databases in collaboration with your lecturers and academic staff, helping you find the most appropriate materials for your subject area.

So it is important that you understand why you need to use these sources, develop your skills and knowledge of how research is published, and which resources are most applicable to your subject areas.

Key journal database for Psychology

The main journal database for Psychology is APA PsycInfo.

APA PsycInfo
This database is published by the American Psychological Associations and provides comprehensive indexing and abstracts of the international psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. Documents indexed include journals, articles, books, dissertations and more. 90% of the 3,000+ titles indexed in APA PsycINFO® are peer-reviewed.

Multidisciplinary journal databases

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science provides access to a collection of databases. The default search is of the Web of Science Core Collection, which includes the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index and Emerging Sources Citation Index. This enables you to search scholarly journals, books and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities and navigate the citation network.
By clicking on the drop-down menu next to ‘Search in:’ you can choose to search other databases: BIOSIS Citation Index (1969-2008), KCI-Korean Journal Database, Medline, Preprint Citation Index and SciELO Citation Index.
SCOPUS This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary abstract and database curated by subject matter experts. Scopus is also a citation index, which means that the records in the database contain information on citations made in that publication and it links that information so you can identify which publications have cited that one, and how many times a publication has been cited.

Health psychology journal databases

CINAHL Complete
I’m having a makeover! This database will be changing its interface on Monday 7th July 2025. This means that the database will look different, and some of the features available will change. Make sure you export the contents of your custom folders before the switchover. For more information on these changes, read our new EBSCOhost interface guide: https://tinyurl.com/ebsco2025
Cinahl Complete with Full Text, the authoritative bibliographic database for nursing and allied health, provides full text for 1350 journals. alternative link

Coverage is from 1937 onwards and also includes books, nursing dissertations, conference proceedings and standards of practice.Cross search available with all EBSCO databases, select Choose Databases and tick those you wish to add to your search.
MEDLINE (Ebsco)

I’m having a makeover! This database will be changing its interface on Monday 7th July 2025. This means that the database will look different, and some of the features available will change. Make sure you export the contents of your custom folders before the switchover. For more information on these changes, read our new EBSCOhost interface guide: https://tinyurl.com/ebsco2025
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and pre-clinical sciences.
alternative link

Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 4,800 current biomedical journals. Included are citations from Index Medicus, International Nursing Index, Index to Dental Literature, HISTLINE, SPACELINE, PREMEDLINE, AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, and HealthSTAR.
Cross search available with all EBSCO databases, select Choose Databases and tick those you wish to add to your search.
PubMed
PubMed is a key Allied Health database, with coverage from the 1950's on. It's content covers all Health subjects and some of the content is Open Access and free to view.

PubMed is a search tool to access citations, abstracts and links to full-text journals at web sites of participating publishers. Including over 15 million citations from journals and covers 4,800 biomedical science journals.

Language and linguistic behaviour journal databases

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
An index of articles from over 2,000 international journal publications.
The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Coverage is also given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical, and geographical linguistics.
MLA International Bibliography
I’m having a makeover! This database will be changing its interface on Monday 7th July 2025. This means that the database will look different, and some of the features available will change. Make sure you export the contents of your custom folders before the switchover. For more information on these changes, read our new EBSCOhost interface guide: https://tinyurl.com/ebsco2025
MLA International Bibliography contains citations of critical works on literature, langauge, linguistics and folklore. It also covers natural and inverted languages.
Includes references to journal articles, books, chapters in books, and abstracts for some dissertations. (There are no abstracts available for records in this database.)
Communication Abstracts
I’m having a makeover! This database will be changing its interface on Monday 7th July 2025. This means that the database will look different, and some of the features available will change. Make sure you export the contents of your custom folders before the switchover. For more information on these changes, read our new EBSCOhost interface guide: https://tinyurl.com/ebsco2025
Communication Abstracts is a comprehensive source of information about communication-related articles, reports, papers, and books from a variety of publishers, research institutions, and information sources.

Social science journal databases

Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)
Index and abstracts for health, social services, psychology, criminology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Currently contains over 312,000 records from 650 journals in 16 different countries, including the UK and US. Coverage is from 1987 onwards. Updated monthly, with more than 1500 records added per update.

Education databases

British Education Index
I’m having a makeover! This database will be changing its interface on Monday 7th July 2025. This means that the database will look different, and some of the features available will change. Make sure you export the contents of your custom folders before the switchover. For more information on these changes, read our new EBSCOhost interface guide: https://tinyurl.com/ebsco2025
Information on research, policy and practice in education and training in the UK. Particular strengths include aspects of educational policy and administration, evaluation and assessment, technology and special educational needs.
Content is included from over 250 English language periodicals published in the British Isles and in certain internationally published periodicals. Subject coverage includes : Cognitive development,Computer assisted learning, Curriculum, Educational policy,Educational psychology,Educational technology, Language acquisition, Training,Management in education, Multicultural education, Physical education, Science education, Special educational needs, Teacher education, Vocational education.
Education databases from ProQuest
Search five education databases together covering all aspects of education. Contains 5 databases: Australian Education Index ; Education database ; ERIC search ; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) ; Sports Medicine and Education Index

Business and marketing databases

Business Source Premier
Full text coverage of trade and academic journals from all business disciplines, including marketing, management, finance and economics.
Emerald Insight
Access to subscribed journals and eBooks published by Emerald. Subject coverage: business, management, marketing, retailing, economics, education, engineering and library and information science.

Browse key journals

BrowZine
Browzine allows you to look through key journals in your specialism. Click through to a journal's contents page to access the articles.

It is important to scan key journals in your subject area to keep up to date. The Articles in Press feature displays the most current articles before they have been officially given a volume and issue number. When you have selected a journal, Articles in Press appears on the left, just below the journal cover image.

What to do if the Library doesn’t stock an article

In the course of searching these specialist resources, you may find articles that we do not have access to in our Library collection. If this happens, we can get the articles for you through our Document Supply Service.

This link is the information about how to use the Document Supply Service at Sheffield Hallam.

Document Supply Service

Psychology