Animal Connections: A Scoping Review towards Enhanced Understanding of Companion Animal Interactions in Assessment of Social Connectedness in Older Adults
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Social isolation and loneliness are concerns in gerontology. The impact of the human-animal interaction (HAI) on loneliness for older adults living alone is understudied. This scoping review explored the extent to which HAI is included in studies investigating social connectedness, specifically social isolation and loneliness, and if HAI bolsters healthy aging through increased perceived support. Following the PRISMA-ScR protocol, data from 58 articles were thematically categorized, identifying (a) existing inclusion of HAI; (b) definitions and descriptions of HAI; and (c) the relationships between HAI and loneliness outcomes, in social connectedness research. Studies including HAI (animal companions and animal-assisted interventions) have increased over time; many noting protection against loneliness and few noting health detriments. Older adults overwhelmingly consider interactions with companion animals as meaningful relationships, whether living at home or in care. Substantial knowledge gaps exist concerning the influence of HAI on perceived social connectedness for older adults living alone.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.018 | 0.065 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.017 | 0.015 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".