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Library

APS Bulletin • Volume 13, Number 3, Summer 2003

Web Site Reviews

Michael E. Clark, PhD, Department Editor

Organization: PAIN^® Online

Reviewed by Ron J. Gironda, PhD

www.elsevier.nl/homepage/sah/pain/menu.html

Site Audience

This is the home page of the online version of PAIN, the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), published by Elsevier Science. IASP is a non-profit professional organization that promotes research on pain and improvement in the care of patients with pain. PAIN is a multidisciplinary forum for the publication of original research on the nature, mechanisms, and treatment of pain, which is cited in Current Contents and Index Medicus. The site may be of interest to authors and consumers of basic and applied pain research as a place to submit and obtain original research articles in electronic format.

Content Appraisal

This Web site’s main features include content listings, abstracts, and full-text articles (PDF format) published in PAIN between 1997 and the present; note that only IASP members can gain access to the full-text files. Available without subscription or registration are topical reviews that address a variety of issues of clinical and scientific interest. Examples of titles that may be useful to APS members include Cancer pain at the end of life: A biopsychosocial perspective; Translational pain research: Bridging the gap between basic and clinical research; and Mechanisms of opioid-induced pain and antinociceptive tolerance: Descending facilitation and spinal dynorphin. The other primary function of this Web site is to serve as a portal to the IASP home page and Elsevier’s SmartWorks 2000 Web site, an integrated online system for the submission, peer-review, and publication of original manuscripts. All links navigate to IASP, PAIN, and Elsevier.

Navigation/Ease of Use

The PAIN Online site is relatively simple, easy to navigate, and well cross-linked. Useful features include alphabetized and linked author and title indices. The search engine provides an excellent means to quickly scan all or selected article reference fields for a given keyword, phrase, or author name; a quick reference link also provides a description of search parameters and a list of search operators. With the exception of the full-text articles, the site is fully accessible to anyone and requires no registration.

Recommendations

Because access to most full-text articles is limited to IASP members, this Web site may be most useful to IASP nonmembers as a source of selected topical reviews and as a portal to the integrated online manuscript submission system. The ability to view abstracts of articles currently in press is also of potential value to APS members.

Review content represents the opinion of the reviewer, not APS.

Please direct your suggestions for future Web Site Reviews to Michael E. Clark, PhD, Department Editor, at michaeleclark@ highstream.net.

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