↓ Skip to main content

Effects of therapeutic horseback riding on post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans

Overview of attention for article published in Military Medical Research, January 2018
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#5 of 445)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
23 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
policy
2 policy sources
twitter
36 X users
facebook
3 Facebook pages
wikipedia
2 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
57 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
330 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Effects of therapeutic horseback riding on post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans
Published in
Military Medical Research, January 2018
DOI 10.1186/s40779-018-0149-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Rebecca A. Johnson, David L. Albright, James R. Marzolf, Jessica L. Bibbo, Hayley D. Yaglom, Sandra M. Crowder, Gretchen K. Carlisle, Amy Willard, Cynthia L. Russell, Karen Grindler, Steven Osterlind, Marita Wassman, Nathan Harms

Abstract

Large numbers of post-deployment U.S. veterans are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI), leading to an urgent need for effective interventions to reduce symptoms and increase veterans' coping. PTSD includes anxiety, flashbacks, and emotional numbing. The symptoms increase health care costs for stress-related illnesses and can make veterans' civilian life difficult. We used a randomized wait-list controlled design with repeated measures of U.S. military veterans to address our specific aim to test the efficacy of a 6-week therapeutic horseback riding (THR) program for decreasing PTSD symptoms and increasing coping self-efficacy, emotion regulation, social and emotional loneliness. Fifty-seven participants were recruited and 29 enrolled in the randomized trial. They were randomly assigned to either the horse riding group (n = 15) or a wait-list control group (n = 14). The wait-list control group experienced a 6-week waiting period, while the horse riding group began THR. The wait-list control group began riding after 6 weeks of participating in the control group. Demographic and health history information was obtained from all the participants. PTSD symptoms were measured using the standardized PTSD Checklist-Military Version (PCL-M). The PCL-M as well as other instruments including, The Coping Self Efficacy Scale (CSES), The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and The Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults-short version (SELSA) were used to access different aspects of individual well-being and the PTSD symptoms. Participants had a statistically significant decrease in PTSD scores after 3 weeks of THR (P ≤ 0.01) as well as a statistically and clinically significant decrease after 6 weeks of THR (P ≤ 0.01). Logistic regression showed that participants had a 66.7% likelihood of having lower PTSD scores at 3 weeks and 87.5% likelihood at 6 weeks. Under the generalized linear model(GLM), our ANOVA findings for the coping self-efficacy, emotion regulation, and social and emotional loneliness did not reach statistical significance. The results for coping self-efficacy and emotion regulation trended in the predicted direction. Results for emotional loneliness were opposite the predicted direction. Logistic regression provided validation that outcome effects were caused by riding longer. The findings suggest that THR may be a clinically effective intervention for alleviating PTSD symptoms in military veterans.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 36 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 330 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 330 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 47 14%
Student > Bachelor 34 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 26 8%
Researcher 25 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 21 6%
Other 51 15%
Unknown 126 38%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 53 16%
Psychology 44 13%
Medicine and Dentistry 30 9%
Social Sciences 17 5%
Sports and Recreations 8 2%
Other 44 13%
Unknown 134 41%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 228. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 July 2023.
All research outputs
#169,212
of 25,576,801 outputs
Outputs from Military Medical Research
#5
of 445 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,891
of 452,352 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Military Medical Research
#1
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,576,801 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 445 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 452,352 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them