Selection of scientific periodicals to monitor drug safety information using Excerpta Medica and Japicdoc in the post marketing surveillance of drugs.

In order to select important journals to be monitored for efficient collection of literature information on drug safety, a retrospective search was made of the safety information in the Excerpta Medica (EM) database between 1979 and 1981. The search provided 54,005 references to drug safety, which were found in a total of 2,536 journals. Fifty percent of the references appeared in only 148 journals, or 6% of all journals surveyed. A similar search, carried out using the Japicdoc (JD) database, provided 9,268 references in 172 journals. To cover all the necessary information appearing in overseas journals, however, a retrospective search of a bibliographic database is required as a cost-effective means to improve the comprehensiveness of the collection of information. In domestic journals, because JD includes fewer journals than EM, all of the 172 journals can be monitored for the collection of drug safety information.