Specific and Non-specific Factors of Animal-Assisted Interventions Considered in Research: A Systematic Review.

ABSTRACT: Research on animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) has increased massively in the last few years. But it is still not clear how AAIs work and how important the animal is in such interventions. The aim of this systematic review was to compile the existing state of knowledge about the working mechanisms of AAIs. We searched 12 major electronic databases for previous AAI studies with active control groups. Of 2001 records identified, we included 172 studies in the systematic review. We extracted previously published hypotheses about working mechanisms and factors that have been implicitly considered specific or non-specific in AAI research by categorizing control conditions using content analysis. We analyzed the categories using descriptive statistics. We found that 84% of the included studies

SUBMITTER: Wagner C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9274084 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature