OVERVIEW

COVERAGE: 1900-PRESENT
FILE SIZE: OVER 350,000 RECORDS FROM OVER 1,100 JOURNALS
UPDATES: WEEKLY

MANTIS addresses all areas of alternative medical literature. It has also become the largest index of peer reviewed articles for several disciplines including; chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, and manual medicine.

CONTENT QUALITY

Alternative medicine that is reliable is critical to researchers and clinicians. Clinical practice today must be evidence-based and supported by the literature. For these reasons, the primary emphasis of MANTIS is the indexing of peer reviewed biomedical journals.

CONTENT FOCUS

Acupuncture
Chiropractic
Exercise Therapy
Herbal Medicine (Phytotherapy)
Homeopathy
Massage
Midwifery
Moxibustion
Naturopathy
Nutrition
Oriental Traditional Medicine
Osteopathic Medicine
Wellness Care

MANTIS includes citations and abstracts from all alternative medicine disciplines. Each record contains a complete citation, the language of the abstract, the language of the article, and the headings and subheadings which describe the article. Approximately 70% of the references include abstracts.

FUTURE EMPHASIS

The content of MANTIS is dictated by our growing number of users. Currently, the priorities are to expand the information related to acupuncture and herbal medicine and at the same time increase the availability of full text documents. Subscribers have significant influence on the development of the MANTIS system. User suggestions are encouraged to improve content, specific journal inclusion, the indexing thesaurus and search engine features.

INDEXING

MANTIS uses standard Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). This includes the use of headings, subheadings, and check tags. Searches with “binding” of heading and subheading are also possible. In addition to the standard MeSH, a supplemental thesaurus has been developed that permits more precise indexing of alternative medical material.

SEARCH ENGINES

Searches through OVID, Dialog, and Datastar use their standard search methods. Searches through Health Index provide a variety of search options. The GRAPHICS option allows students and clinicians, who are usually not familiar with MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), to conduct a search with the simple click of the mouse. The ADVANCED option allows users to create boolean arguments and conduct searches similar to conventional systems. Articles may be located by using title/abstract keywords, year, publication, author name, or by using MeSH headings/subheadings. Limiting retrievals by clinical relevancy, age group, study & sex group, or discipline can also be performed.

Here is a list of some of the many reasons why the MANTIS database is an important resource to students, physicians and other health care professionals:

CLINICAL COMPETENCY

The MANTIS database provides doctors throughout the world with vital information to aid in delivering quality patient education and care.

RESEARCH

All research begins with a review of existing studies. MANTIS eliminates the need of expending unnecessary resources (time and limited research dollars) attempting to find literature.

STATE SCOPE OF PRACTICE

We have been instrumental in providing research to support chiropractic treatment in states where chiropractic services were being denied or curtailed (e.g. The Texas Worker’s Compensation Board was attempting to deny treatment of all upper extremity problems. Within 24 hours we provided over 80 studies supporting chiropractic treatment for these conditions.)

GUIDELINES / CONSENSES PROCESSES

These endeavors require all available information be gathered and brought to bear on the clinical issue being considered. (The Mercy and other practice guidelines as well as best practice reviews by CCGPP and others were developed with the use of MANTIS. For the Australians we generated hundreds of searches which were used as the foundation for their consensus processes and guidelines).

EDUCATION

Virtually all of the chiropractic colleges world wide (now including schools in both Denmark and South Africa) rely on MANTIS as their primary chiropractic information source for faculty and students.

IMAGE OF CHIROPRACTIC

We have been able to place MANTIS online through the world’s largest database vendors i.e. Ovid and Dialog in the United States, and Datastar in Switzerland. These vendors provide a monthly usage report that reflects searches being made by hospitals and clinics throughout the world. MANTIS is also frequently used by governmental organizations like the Center for Disease Control. Throughout the years, we have received many positive comments from the medical community who were not aware of the amount of research supporting chiropractic care.

INSURANCE INDUSTRY

Searches are frequently asked for by the insurance industry. These searches are usually made to avoid payment for services rendered by chiropractors. Our search service makes sure all possible information is given to support chiropractic treatment. There have been many instances where our information has prevailed in convincing an insurance carrier to pay for specific types of care (e.g. children, respiratory problems, upper extremity conditions, etc.).

MALPRACTICE

We have used MANTIS as well as other relevant databases to provide the vital information required to successfully defend numerous malpractice cases. These requests have come from doctors, attorneys, and malpractice carriers.

NATIONAL & STATE POLITICS

We routinely respond to requests for information resulting from conflicts with medical and physical therapy groups. This usually involves “turf issues” where these groups are seeking to either include spinal manipulation in their practice or limit in some way the practice of chiropractic.

PATIENTS

The public is very interested in exploring alternative medicine. This has resulted in a growing number of requests from the public who we are able to provide information and direct them to chiropractic care.

CHIROPRACTIC CONTROL OF MANUAL MEDICINE

Because of MANTIS, the chiropractic profession has a greater percentage of its literature indexed than any other health care discipline. The National Library of Medicine with over 9 million records has only indexed 18% of the biomedical literature. MANTIS is also the only index of osteopathy and manual medical literature. MANTIS places complete command of manipulation research in the hands of the chiropractic profession. The other professions have to and do come to us for that information.

"Our study shows that a specialized database such as MANTIS does offer unique resources that are not typically indexed by commonly used databases (eg. PubMed). As health care institutions and providers are increasing their services in the areas of CAM to meet public demands, an ever-growing number of subject-specific bibliographic databases are becoming available within the field of CAM. Libraries and research centers must find funding to increase access to specialized databases for CAM if institutional priorities focus on this growing area of medicine.

In a literature search for complementary and alternative medicine material, "The highest sensitivity (58%) and precision (83%) were obtained through MANTIS, since MANTIS specializes in osteopathic medicine, allopathic medicine, chiropractic, and physical therapy, which is the focus area of our systematic review."

"MANTIS, which provides comprehensive access to the literature of chiropractic and manual medicine, has been achieved at Northwestern at a very expedient, efficient and cost-effective level."

"MANTIS, formerly Chirolars, is the most comprehensive bibliographic database covering the disciplines of manual medicine, health promotion, preventative medicine and conservative care.

"The results of this study show that a field doctor's search using the MANTIS (formerly Chirolars) database is likely to be the faster and more complete than a search of the manual databases or a non-chiropractic computerized database."