Artículo
Current Status of Animal-Assisted Interventions in Scientific Literature: A Critical Comment on Their Internal Validity
Autor/es | López-Cepero Borrego, Javier |
Departamento | Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológicos |
Fecha de publicación | 2020 |
Fecha de depósito | 2020-12-10 |
Publicado en |
|
Premios | Premio Trimestral Publicación Científica Destacada de la US. Facultad de Psicología Premio Trimestral Publicación Científica Destacada de la US. Facultad de Psicología |
Resumen | Many meta-analyses and systematic reviews have tried to assess the efficacy of animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), reaching inconsistent conclusions. The present work posits a critical exploration of the current literature, ... Many meta-analyses and systematic reviews have tried to assess the efficacy of animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), reaching inconsistent conclusions. The present work posits a critical exploration of the current literature, using some recent meta-analyses to exemplify the presence of unattended threats. The present comment illustrates that the field (1) comprehends inconsistencies regarding the terms and definitions of AAIs; (2) pays more attention to the characteristics of the animals than to the action mechanisms of AAIs; (3) does not provide a clear connection between anthrozoology (how humans and non-human animals interact in communities), benefits of the human–animal interaction (HAI), and the design of AAIs; and (4) implicitly reinforces these phenomena through research designs. Thus, some conclusions extracted from these meta-analyses need further discussion. Increasing the internal validity of AAIs in empirical studies is an urgent task, which can be addressed by (1) developing a better understanding of how anthrozoology, the HAI, and AAIs relate to each other; (2) highlighting the mechanisms that explain the results in an empirical and specific way; and (3) changing the design of interventions, adopting a component-centered approach, and focusing on the incremental efficacy and efficiency of AAI programs. |
Cita | López-Cepero Borrego, J. (2020). Current Status of Animal-Assisted Interventions in Scientific Literature: A Critical Comment on Their Internal Validity. Animals, 10, 1-12. |
Ficheros | Tamaño | Formato | Ver | Descripción |
---|---|---|---|---|
Current Status of Animal-Assis ... | 568.7Kb | [PDF] | Ver/ | |