Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Prison-based animal programs have shown promise when it comes to increased sociability, responsibility, and levels of patience for inmates who participate in these programs.Yet there remains a dearth of scientific research that demonstrates the impact of prisonbased animal programs on inmates' physical and mental health.Trials of animal-assisted therapy interventions, a form of human-animal interaction therapy most often used with populations affected by depression/anxiety, mental illness, and trauma, may provide models of how prison-based animal program research can have widespread implementation in jail and prison settings, whose populations have high rates of mental health problems.This paper reviews the components of prison-based animal programs most commonl y practiced in prisons today, presents five animal-assisted therapy case studies, evaluates them based on their adaptability to prisonbased animal programs, and discusses the institutional constraints that act as barriers for rigorous prison-based animal program research implementation.This paper can serve to inform the development of a research approach to animal-assisted therapy that nurses and other public health researchers can use in working with correctional populations.
Source: WBI Studies Repository
Author: Erich Yahner
Language: English
Subfield: Animal Science and Zoology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2950610109