The Status of Instrument Development in the Human-Animal Interaction Field

An overview of available instruments that assess characteristics of human-animal interactions is provided, followed by a matrix of 140 tools, what they measure, information on structure and properties, original published sources, and a citation, when available, to another study in which the tool was also used. Using Anderson's (2007) book Assessing the Human-Animal Bond: A Compendium of Actual Measures, as a baseline, we systematically searched seven electronic databases. Suggested steps for future instrument development and research include greater accessibility through manualizing, carefully naming, providing design and conceptual rationales, defining key terms, describing revisions along with use and scoring instructions, providing scores from several populations, including validity and reliability data, and taking long-term responsibility for further refinement of instruments.