Human and animal health: strengthening the link: Methodological concerns about animal facilitated therapy with dolphins

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7529.1407

BMJ 2005;331:1407 (10 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7529.1407

Letter

Human and animal health: strengthening the link

Methodological concerns about animal facilitated therapy with dolphins

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—We have the following concerns with Antonioli andReveley's study of animal facilitated depression with dolphinsin the treatment of depression.¹

The study was small (30 patients), only 13 people from the animalcare programme and 12 from the outdoor nature programme completingthe study. The authors used a conservative measure to estimatethe number of patients required for this study, and even thenfell short by 17%.

View larger version (114K):
[in this window]
[in a new window]

Single women predominated in both arms.

It is difficult to fathom how clinical raters can be blindedto the treatment hypothesis.

The authors did not mention the ethnic group of the participants.

Only people who could go to Honduras were able to take partin this study. Most people with mild depression will not beable to take a three week holiday.

The findings are not generalisable as most people would notbe able to afford to go to such a location . . . [Full text of this article]

Biju Basil, resident in psychiatry

Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19124 USA, bijubasil@yahoo.com

Maju Mathews, professor of psychiatry

Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19124 USA

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Randomised controlled trial of animal facilitated therapy with dolphins in the treatment of depression: Christian Antonioli and Michael A Reveley
BMJ 2005 331: 1231. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]