A quantitative examination of two equine therapy models on Veterans with mental health needs

Abstract: This study investigated two equine therapy-based interventions for addressing mental health difficulties in veterans, with an emphasis on the reduction of symptoms related to depression, anxiety, and sleep difficulties. Thirty veterans were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: traditional equine assisted growth and learning association (Traditional EAGALA), novel equine facilitated complex trauma (Novel EFT-CT), or waitlist control. Participants completed the Treatment Outcome Package (TOP; Kraus et al., 2005) at baseline and post-intervention. Results demonstrated that the Novel EFT-CT intervention was significantly more effective than both traditional EAGALA intervention and waitlist control in reducing symptoms of depression and sleep difficulties, with large effect sizes. On the measures of anxiety, the effect size was not significant; although post-hoc comparisons showed that novel EFT-CT intervention scores were significantly lower than waitlist control. Traditional EAGALA intervention did not significantly outperform waitlist control on any measure of outcome. Gender was a significant predictor of all outcome data. In particular, females benefited the most despite females’ scoring higher pre- and post-intervention. Age was a significant predictor of follow-up depression scores, with participants who were older reporting somewhat higher levels of depression regardless of intervention. This research demonstrates the potential for Novel EFT-CT approaches to treat the large and growing population of veterans in need of mental health care. This research suggests several promising avenues for future investigation, including examination of change mechanisms, particularly stress response modulation; analysis of treatment effect mediators and moderators, such as neurochemical homeostasis, positive affect enhancement, and attachment behavior optimization; and the implementation of larger-scale, multi-site studies.