Equine-Assisted Therapy

Equine-assisted therapy encompasses a range of treatments that involve activities with horses and other equines to promote human physical and mental health. Modern use of horses for mental health treatment dates to the 1990s, and systematic review of studies of equine-assisted therapy applied to physical health dates only to about 2007, with a lack of common terminology and standardization causing problems for meta-analysis. Because high-quality studies assessing the efficacy of equine-assisted therapies for mental health treatment remain limited, concerns have been raised that these therapies should not replace or divert resources from other evidence-based mental health therapies; the existing body of evidence does not by itself justify the promotion and use of equine-related treatments for mental disorders.