Methodological Considerations in Designing and Evaluating Animal-Assisted Interventions

Methodological Considerations in Designing and Evaluating Animal-Assisted Interventions

This paper presents a discussion of the literature on animal-assisted interventions and describes limitations surrounding current methodological quality. Benefits to human physical, psychological and social health cannot be empirically confirmed due to the methodological limitations of the existing body of research, and comparisons cannot validly be made across different studies. Without a soli...

Methodological Considerations Regarding Cognitive Interventions in Dementia

1 Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile 3 National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina 4 Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia 5 ...

Equine Assisted Interventions (EAIs): Methodological Considerations for Stress Assessment in Horses

Equine assisted interventions (EAIs) are recently facing an increasing popularity, and are characterized by a wide diversity of practices. However, information on the welfare of animals involved in this kind of activity is often lacking. Horses are highly susceptible to work stressors related to physical constraints and/or to the need to control emotions while interacting with humans. Considera...

Methodological, planning and implementation challenges for rcts evaluating group interventions

Statistical concerns over the design and analysis of RCTs in which patients receive therapy as a group are well documented (see for instance, Roberts C, Clin Trials. 2005;2(2):152-62). By contrast, there is little discussion in the published literature of a range of other challenges to the success of such studies. These include how to plan for and manage: scheduling of participant recruitment, ...

Health Benefits of Animal-Assisted Interventions