Abstract
This study aims to identify the most valid, reliable and practicable indicators of laboratory mouse welfare using the Delphi consultation technique. The effective assessment of laboratory mouse welfare is a fundamental legal and moral requirement as it is critical part of both maintaining and improving the welfare of the most widely used laboratory animal globally. Although many different welfare indicators are routinely used to assess mouse welfare, the validity, reliability and practicability of many of these measures remains unclear. The Delphi consultation technique is designed to gauge expert opinion through multiple rounds of surveys until a consensus is reached. Participants ranked 59 welfare indicators in terms their validity, reliability and practicability for either a half-day unit audit or a daily welfare assessment and for each scenario identified 10 key indicators. The Delphi consultation reached consensus at 72% for the overall list of indicators and over 60% for each individual indicator. From this consensus the key indicators for each mouse welfare scenario (half day audit and daily welfare assessment) were identified and used to create a welfare scoring system for each scenario.
Highlights
Mice are the most commonly used species in scientific research, with over 4.6 million mice estimated to be used annually in regulated research globally[1]
The aim of this study was to determine, through expert opinion, which laboratory mouse welfare indicators would be valid to use in a half-day welfare audit of a laboratory mouse facility and in an everyday welfare assessment carried out by technical staff
Delphi methodology has been shown to be a valuable tool for aggregating information from laboratory mouse welfare experts across the world, allowing experts to exchange opinions and come to a consensus
Summary
Mice are the most commonly used species in scientific research, with over 4.6 million mice estimated to be used annually in regulated research globally[1]. There have been limited studies gathering information from experts about indicators and methods for assessing animal welfare These studies were conducted a few years ago (around 2010), and the majority focus on species other than mice, such as cows[12], horses[13], pigs[14] and laying hens[15] and their focus was the development of policies and recommendations for welfare[16,17,18]. There are no specific guidelines offering a definition of consensus in Delphi studies, as it is argued it depends on the nature of the research that is carried out (e.g. medical decision, development of new policies etc.)[28] Studies using this technique in nursing and animal welfare contexts have used a level of 70% consensus as a standard[29,30,31,32]. Since there are no guidelines to set a consensus level in Delphi studies a level of 70% was used as this is aligned with other peer-reviewed, animal welfare research[18,33]
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