Djur som arbetsterapeutisk intervention : En litteraturöversikt

The purpose of this study was to from the perspective of a literature study describe how animals have been used as occupational therapy interventions with different therapeutic intensions and the effects for the clients. Data was collected through a systematic search with predetermined keywords in the databases CINAHL, AMED, Pubmed and Scopus and also a manual search via reference lists. In the analysis of data, intervention principles were used to group the various animal interventions plus an analysis of the degree of evidence value in relation to different effects. The presentation of the result is emanated from question formulations with focus on therapeutic intention and type of intervention, effect and client group. From the results it was derived that the most common intervention form was ’restorative occupation’ and that the execution of interventions with animals varies, and also that the same species of animal can be used with different intentions. The most common animal that was used was horses. The results also demonstrated that a majority of the included studies showed a statistically significant result and that all studies showed some kind of positive outcome. The results also showed that the majority of the studies were aimed towards the age group children and adolescents and also that the majority of the interventions were aimed towards people in habilitation, with the exception of women that were residents in an assisted living and soldiers in transition. The discussion demonstrated that more research is needed, chiefly to investigate effect and the meaning of animal therapy in comparison with other intervention forms with the intention to enhance activity performance.Validerat; 20130611 (global_studentproject_submitter