We are looking for Testimonials to be involved in an international survey on doctors’ and health professionals’ opinion about Animal Assisted Interventions

I-DO-AII online surveyI-DO-AAI is an international survey on doctors’ and health professionals’ opinion about Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI) that will be done under the scope of the Italian national reference laboratory on AAI (NRL-AAI) and will be conducted by a professional survey agency (Demetra Inc).

A similar survey has been implemented by the NRL-AAI on a national basis and will start, in Italy, on September, 2014. The main coordinator of both surveys will be Carlo Moretti, medical doctor (pediatrician and child psychiatrist) of the NRL-AAI.

It’s a Computer Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) that takes 20 minutes to be completed. It will start on December 15, 2014 and will be on line for at least three months or until reached the sample size requested.

It is addressed to:

  • primary care physicians: general practictioner, primary care pediatricians, family physicians
  • hospital physicians: pediatrics, psychiatry, neurology, rehabilitation, geriatrics, ICU
  • nurses: children’s nurses, mental health nurses, learning disability nurses, district nurses
  • psychologists, psycotherapists
  • allied health professionals: physiotherapists, prosthetists, art-dramatherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, play therapists, child life specialists

No matters if they are involved or not in these kinds of interventions.

Why this survey is important

Survey on doctor's opinion about pet therapyPublic opinion and media have great expectations about the (supposed) positive effects of AAI but preliminary studies have noticed that, among physicians and other health professionals, there are important differences about specific knowledge on indications, effects and problems of AAI.

If health professionals do not trust a certain kind of therapy, they probably will not prescribe it to their patients, depriving them of a chance.

We believe that it’s mandatory to investigate health professionals’ beliefs about this topic in order to implement future actions to increase and spread knowledge of pros and cons of the AAI. Besides, it can be very intriguing to compare opinions about AAI of health professionals’ coming from of different countries and cultures.

The role of Testimonials

I-DO-AAI TestimonialsFor the success of the international survey we need to collect interviews of very large groups of doctors coming from the same country or at least from the same local area, to create really representative samples of the medical opinion.

To reach this goal, we are looking for individuals, named I-DO-AAI Testimonials that, under the dome of the Italian NRL-AAI, can enroll in this project national or local boards or associations of physicians, psicologists or other health professionals.

Testimonials will act as local coordinator of the survey and will be ONLY asked to collect, on an official basis, as many doctors’ contacts (e-mail addresses) and send them to the coordinator of the survey. The technical staff of the I-DO-AAI survey will then contact these doctors to the test their interest in partecipating to the survey.

Testimonials will receive periodic data about the progression of the survey. After conclusion of the survey, they will be cited in all scientific and divulgative papers as “Local coordinator of I-DO-AAI survey”.

As you can understand, your participation is crucial for this project, so….

… become an I-DO-AAI Testimonial!

Click on the link below and fill the form with your data to become one of our Testimonials

Become a Testimonial »

If you want to get further information about this project please contact the main coordinator, Dr. Carlo Moretti at moretti@pediatria.unipd.it