ReviewJournal of anesthesia, analgesia and critical care2023
Risks and benefits of animal-assisted interventions for critically ill patients admitted to intensive care units.
Review in Journal of anesthesia, analgesia and critical care, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- [Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) in intensive care : Position of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2026Guideline
- Enhancing humanized care in French ICUs: the potential benefit of welcoming pet visitors.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Article
- Therapy Dogs at the Bedside: A Scoping Review of Pet Therapy in Adult Intensive Care Units.Cureus · 2025Review
- Pawsitive Care: Canine-Assisted Intervention for Anxiety in ICU Patients and Family Members: A Single-Center, Single-Arm Study.Critical care explorations · 2025Article
- Assisted animal interventions in the ICU: we are responsible for ensuring the well-being and ethical treatment of animals and humans.Journal of anesthesia, analgesia and critical care · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPets offer significant health benefits, from decreased cardiovascular risks to anxiety and post-traumatic stress improvements. Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) are not frequently practiced in the intensive care unit (ICU) for fear of health risk for critical patients because there is a hypothetical risk of zoonoses.
objectivesThis systematic review aimed to collect and summarize available evidence about AAI in the ICU. The Review questions were "Do AAI improve the clinical outcome of Critically Ill Patients admitted to ICUs?" and "Are the zoonotic infections the cause of negative prognosis?".
methodsThe following databases were searched on 5 January 2023: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, and PubMed. All controlled studies (randomized controlled, quasi-experimental, and observational studies) were included. The systematic review protocol has been registered on the International Prospective Register of Systematic Review (CRD42022344539).
resultsA total of 1302 papers were retrieved, 1262 after the duplicate remotion. Of these, only 34 were assessed for eligibility and only 6 were included in the qualitative synthesis. In all the studies included the dog was the animal used for the AAI with a total of 118 cases and 128 controls. Studies have high variability, and no one has used increased survival or zoonotic risk as outcomes.
conclusionsThe evidence on the effectiveness of AAIs in ICU settings is scarce and no data are available on their safety. AAIs use in the ICU must be considered experimental and follow the related regulation until further data will be available. Given the potential positive impact on patient-centered outcomes, a research effort for high-quality studies seems to be justified.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.