The PICO question is, “In hospitalized, and sexually abused children, is animal-assisted therapy effective in reducing stress symptoms as compared to no animal therapy?” The population is children in stressful situations, and in this case, is children who are hospitalized, or have been sexually abused. The intervention is animal assisted therapy. The control is no animal-assisted therapy, and the outcome is stress symptoms. The use of animal-assisted therapy on stress symptoms was evaluated in both the Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) article and the Branson et al. (2017) article. The Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) study implemented cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with the assistance of dogs without stories, dogs with stories, and no
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The Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) study concluded that animal therapy is an effective treatment modality for children in stressful situations, especially those who have been sexually abused. The Branson et al. (2017) concluded that, although there were positive responses in symptoms to the animal therapy, the significance of the effect was small and more studies with large number of participants would be needed to fully evaluate the effectiveness of animal therapy. The limitation to the Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) study is that there was no randomization in the study, and so it is difficult to minimize confounding variables such as PTSD symptoms due to Hawthorne effect. The limitation to the Branson et al. (2017) study is that the sample size was small and so could not produce statistically significant results. The results from both studies would assist in providing evidenced based care for my patients. Both studies demonstrated reasonable consistent results, implemented a control group, and had fairly definitive conclusions. Also, both studies produced statistically significant values that showed animal-assisted therapy had a positive influence on stress symptoms. Therefore, I will recommend for children in stressful situations to participate in animal-assisted therapy with controlled interactions for maximum
The Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) study concluded that animal therapy is an effective treatment modality for children in stressful situations, especially those who have been sexually abused. The Branson et al. (2017) concluded that, although there were positive responses in symptoms to the animal therapy, the significance of the effect was small and more studies with large number of participants would be needed to fully evaluate the effectiveness of animal therapy. The limitation to the Dietz, Davis, and Pennings (2012) study is that there was no randomization in the study, and so it is difficult to minimize confounding variables such as PTSD symptoms due to Hawthorne effect. The limitation to the Branson et al. (2017) study is that the sample size was small and so could not produce statistically significant results. The results from both studies would assist in providing evidenced based care for my patients. Both studies demonstrated reasonable consistent results, implemented a control group, and had fairly definitive conclusions. Also, both studies produced statistically significant values that showed animal-assisted therapy had a positive influence on stress symptoms. Therefore, I will recommend for children in stressful situations to participate in animal-assisted therapy with controlled interactions for maximum