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