The application of animal-assisted therapy in the South African context: A case study

In the citing paper

“These findings provide some support for anecdotal claims that AAIs are both acceptable and well tolerated by adolescents (e.g. [56]).”

In the citing paper

“The authors directly attributed a number of results to the presence of the canine, despite an acknowledgment that confounding factors were not explored (e.g., the role of the therapy, relationship with the facilitator, outside relationships and age/development).”

In the citing paper

“Three of the studies [56, 73, 74] were ranked as ‘fair’ for methodological quality, indicating the possibility of bias.”

In the citing paper

“The dosage of the intervention was not described.”

In the citing paper

“The intervention was not standardised, but was delivered in a responsive way to the participant’s presenting issues and treatment goals.”

In the citing paper

“Lubbe and Scholtz [56] reported a single case study; an individual counselling intervention, facilitated by a counsellor and her own canine.”

In the citing paper

“The majority of interventions were conducted with male and female participants except Lubbe and Scholtz [56] (a single case study with 14 year old male) and Hamama, Hamama-Raz [74] (a group program for females).”

In the citing paper

“All but two of the studies reported that facilitators were explicitly trained or supervised in AAT [56, 76].”

In the citing paper

“Participants presented with a range of difficulties, including: females with a history of physical or sexual abuse, low achievement in school & interpersonal difficulties [74]; males and females requiring an anger management intervention [75, 76]; adolescents referred to counselling for emotional issues [56, 73]; or adolescents admitted to hospital with severe psychiatric illness [71, 72].”

In the citing paper

“Both individual counselling interventions [56, 73] were delivered indoors, in typical counselling rooms.”

In the citing paper

“Interactions with the canine contained a mix of structured (facilitator-led), semi-structured and spontaneous interactions.”

In the citing paper

“Thematic analysis conducted by Lubbe and Scholtz [56] of documents from the therapeutic case file (including a book made by the participant that contained letters, drawings, paintings and photos) and follow-up interview, identified five themes arising from the presence of the therapy canine: facilitating relationship building; enabling communication by working indirectly; experiencing physical aff”

In the citing paper

“Lange, Cox [75], Lubbe and Scholtz [56] and Hartwig [73] reported on limitations to feasibility, stating that access to appropriately trained animals and handlers must be considered in addition to facilitator training and supervision.”

In the citing paper

“With regard to acceptability (i.e., attendance and attrition), no drop-outs are evident or reported for four of the studies [56, 73, 74, 76].”

In the citing paper

“Lubbe and Scholtz [56] imply that tolerability is high as the participant achieves positive outcomes in the AAT intervention where previous interventions were unsuccessful.”

In the citing paper

“There is insufficient evidence from this review to conclude that CAP will improve factors associated with participant wellbeing; such as self-concept, self-esteem, coping or subjective wellbeing [73, 74], with only one case study finding self-reported improvements to self-esteem [56].”

In the citing paper

“These findings may be a product of the canine’s ability to increase calm, self-soothing and feelings of attachment [38, 39, 56, 75, 76, 87]”

In the citing paper

“Positive, pro-social engagements such as talking and showing affection were reported by a number of the authors [56, 71, 72, 75, 76] and are consistent with the existing literature [38, 39].”

In the citing paper

“Findings were supported by qualitative feedback indicating that CAP improved attendance, disclosure, relationships and communication [56, 75].”