Quality of Life within Horse Welfare Assessment Tools: Informing Decisions for Chronically Ill and Geriatric Horses

Abstract

Equine Quality of Life (QoL) is an important concern in decision making in veterinary medicine and is especially relevant for chronically ill or geriatric horses towards the end of their lives. To our knowledge, there is no currently available QoL assessment tool for chronically ill or geriatric horses that assesses equine QoL defined as the horse’s evaluation of their life. However, tools exist to assess equine welfare in different contexts. Hence, the aims of this study were to analyse how equine welfare, QoL, well-being and happiness assessment tools label, define and operationalise the concepts and to discuss the tools’ suitability to assess equine QoL in the context of end-of-life decisions for chronically ill or geriatric horses. Fourteen articles were found through a systematic literature search, describing ten equine welfare assessment tools and one approach to integrating equine QoL in veterinary practice that suggests QoL assessment parameters. We discuss that some welfare assessment tools have the potential to support the development of a QoL assessment tool informing decisions towards the end of horses’ lives if they are adjusted to focus on the horses' experiences, to provide an integration into an overall QoL grade and are tailored to chronically ill or geriatric horses.

A Qualitative Exploration of UK Leisure Horse Owners’ Perceptions of Equine Wellbeing

“…To date, there are no validated Quality of Life (QoL) assessment scales for horses, and so assessment is encouraged through the use or adjustment of existing welfare assessment tools and pain scales [ 5 , 16 , 17 ]. Recent research [ 6 ] has reported that formal QoL frameworks were not used by competition horse owners who opted instead for more informal ways of understanding their horse.…”

Quality-of-Life Assessments in Zoo Animals: Not Just for the Aged and Charismatic

“…It is recommended that these tools and frameworks be used as the basis for further development of generic zoo animal QoL assessments, especially those for non-geriatric life stages and non-mammalian species. The results of a critical review of prevailing equine welfare assessment tools as candidates for QoL evaluation of chronically ill horses [21] provides some guidance and caution. The authors found that the most suitable instruments are restricted to those that prioritise the subjective mental experience of the animal, those that integrate criteria into one overall grade, and those that focus on long-term as opposed to momentary states.…”

“…There are definitions that erroneously include inputs presumed to affect the welfare and QoL of animals, as well as the individual's response to those inputs, thereby confusing indicators of QoL with QoL itself [18]. Others limit the definition to the animal's evaluation, perception, and affective response [19][20][21], and/or highlight the balance of positive and negative experiences [19,22].…”

Development of a novel primate welfare assessment tool for research macaques

“…Welfare assessment tools have been developed for specific species such as elephants (Yon et al 2019 ), horses (Long et al 2022 ), reptiles (Benn et al 2019 ), for animals housed in zoos (Sherwen et al 2018 ), for livestock species in different stages of production (see, for example, Kirchner et al 2014 ; Buijs et al 2017 ; Kang et al 2022 ), but only recently has attention turned towards primates in biomedical research settings (Truelove et al 2020 ; Prescott et al 2022 ). The main purpose of an animal welfare assessment tool is to have an objective and quantitative measure of animal welfare that permits regular assessment with the goal of taking action to improve animal welfare (Honess & Wolfensohn 2010 ; CCAC 2021 ).…”