Adaptive Riding Incorporating Cognitive Behavioral Elements for Youth with Anxiety: Fidelity Outcomes

Abstract

Equine-assisted services include novel approaches for treating children’s mental health disorders, one of which is anxiety ( Latella & Abrams, 2019 ). Reining in Anxiety is a manualized approach to adaptive riding drawing on evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy elements for youth with anxiety. This intervention was delivered by PATH Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructors (CTRIs) in a randomized pilot study. Fidelity checklists, developed to match the core components of the manualized intervention, were collected by independent observers. Fidelity scores addressed an average of 98.7% of components, well beyond the threshold for high fidelity (e.g. >80%) established in the literature ( Garbancz et al., 2014 ). These findings show that the PATH CTRIs trained in the Reining in Anxiety intervention for this study, with supervision and implementation supports, delivered this intervention with high fidelity. This has important implications for expanding access to evidence-based community mental health services beyond traditional clinic settings and providers, and for addressing the gap between the need for and use of evidence-based youth mental health services.