Report practices in the field of animal hoarding: a scoping study of the literature

Abstract

Background

Animal hoarding has been portrayed as a manifestation of hoarding behaviour that is escalating worldwide. Professionals trying to support or help animal hoarders face several challenges due to the lack of systematized information on intervention strategies.

Aims

To comprehensively review and systematize the information available on intervention practices with this population.

Method

A scoping study was performed using five databases (B-ON, EBSCO, SCOPUS, Web of SCIENCE, PubMed), searching for papers published until March 2020. Fifteen papers were selected and submitted to thematic analysis.

Results

The main findings point to two main themes: (i) what is done–responding to animal hoarding as an emergency; and (ii) what should be done–responding animal hoarding in a long-term, integrated manner.

Conclusions

To have a consistent strategy that assures better results, it seems relevant to prepare community interventions based on collaborative and solution-focused approaches. In addition, there is a strong need to have more research on animal hoarding and on successful intervention strategies.

Keywords:

• Animal hoarding
• Noah syndrome
• intervention
• scoping study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by National Funds through Fundação para a Ciĉncia e a Tecnologia (FCT) within the CINTESIS R&D Unit (reference UIDB/4255/2020).