An Equine-Assisted Therapy for Youth with Mild to Moderate Anxiety: Manual Development and Fidelity

Childhood anxiety is common, yet approximately half of youth do not receive treatment due to stigma, mistrust of the mental health service system, extensive wait lists for services and provider shortages. Alternative models and modes of treatment are needed. This paper describes the development of an alternative treatment that incorporates cognitive behavioral components for anxiety into an adaptive/therapeutic riding program delivered by certified riding instructors in a horse stable that offers horseback riding and therapeutic horsemanship programs. Using PracticeWise®, a well-established database of evidence-based mental health practices for youth, we identified five therapeutic elements that are the most commonly examined in rigorous research for childhood anxiety, and integrated them into a manualized program of adaptive riding sessions. Excellent fidelity to the intervention (98.7% mean score) and high inter-rater reliability (k = 0.92) were achieved. This approach has implications for expanding access to and engagement in adaptive/therapeutic riding interventions.