153 Comparison of cortisol concentrations between traditional group therapy and equine assisted psychotherapy for substance use disorder residential treatment patients

Abstract

Equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP) is emerging as an effective supplemental substance use disorder (SUD) treatment due to documented improvements in treatment retention, patient-therapist alliances, and patient communication skills within the therapeutic environment. Benefits are attributed to decreased cortisol concentrations associated with horse interaction during the therapy process, however, there is limited research on stress parameters related to EAP during SUD recovery. Due to the prolific nature of this disorder, there is an urgency in exploring effective treatment options for SUD. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate concentrations of cortisol in SUD patients within a residential treatment program participating in EAP compared with those participating in traditional group therapy. Salivary cortisol samples were collected from 2 sample populations of young adults: A) residential SUD patients (n = 18) before and after 2 successive weeks of EAP-supplemented therapy sessions and B) residential population of SUD patients (n = 5) before and after 2 successive weeks of traditional group therapy sessions. The impacts of treatment, week of sampling, and treatment by week interactions were analyzedusing a mixed linear model in SAS. Significance level was set at 0.05. No significant impacts of therapy type (P = 0.74), week of sampling (P = 0.69), or any week by treatment interactions (P = 0.86) on patient cortisol concentrations were observed over the 2 week period. Results indicate that despite the therapeutic environment moving to an outdoor setting and the inclusion of exercise in the form of horseback riding within the EAP sessions that EAP did not introduce additional stress responses reflected in the cortisol measures than that seen within the traditional therapeutic setting. As such, EAP presents an opportunity to offer an alternative therapeutic experience where traditional approaches may have faltered, however, further research is needed looking at a larger sample population and additional physiological measures to determine the complete physiological impact this therapy has on SUD patients in comparison to other forms of therapeutic interventions.