ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2025
Donkey-assisted therapy in mental health conditions: a systematic review.
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: This paper evaluates the effectiveness of donkey-assisted therapy in neurodevelopmental disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. Methods: Registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42025644921) and conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, the review included studies from ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Web of Science, and PubMed (National Library of Medicine), searched up to 31 December 2024. The inclusion criteria were (a) pilot studies, randomized control studies, and uncontrolled clinical trials, (b) dealing with donkey-assisted interventions (DAI) in children, adolescents, and adults age, (c) in English, Italian, Spanish, or German languages. The exclusion criteria were: (a) clinical cases, pre-prints, letters to the editor, reviews, and systematic reviews; (b) studies involving therapies other than donkey-assisted therapy. Results: Four observational studies were included. The results suggest that donkey-assisted interventions, particularly donkey-assisted therapy, help improve emotional regulation, communication, social interaction, and self-esteem in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Improvements in autonomy, motor coordination, and social engagement have been observed in adults. Conclusion: The heterogeneity of study methodologies, variations in sample size, assessment instruments, and intervention duration limit the generalizability of the results. Future research should focus on large-scale, well-controlled studies, standardizing protocols and outcome measures to quantify the therapeutic impact of DAI in diverse populations.
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.