Objectives Regular walking is a critical target of physical activity (PA) promotion, and dog walking is a feasible PA intervention for a large segment of the population. The purpose of this paper was to review PA interventions that have involved canine interactions and to evaluate their effectiveness. A secondary aim of this review was to highlight the populations, settings, designs and intervention components that have been applied so as to inform future research. Design Systematic review. Data sources We carried out literature searches to August 2019 using six common databases. Eligibility criteria Studies included published papers in peer-reviewed journals and grey literature (theses and dissertations) in the English language that included any PA behaviour change design (ie, randomised controlled trial, quasi-experimental) that focused on canine-related intervention. We grouped findings by population, setting, medium, research design and quality, theory and behaviour change techniques applied. Results The initial search yielded 25 010 publications which were reduced to 13 independent studies of medium and high risks of bias after screening for eligibility criteria. The approaches to intervene on PA were varied and included loaner dogs, new dog owners and the promotion of walking among established dog owners. Findings were consistent in showing that canine-assisted interventions do increase PA (82% of the studies had changes favouring the canine-facilitated intervention). Exploratory subanalyses showed that specific study characteristics and methods may have moderated the effects. Compared with studies with longer follow-up periods, studies with shorter follow-up favoured behaviour changes of the canine intervention over the control condition. Conclusion Canine-based PA interventions appear effective, but future research should move beyond feasibility and proof of concept studies to increase rigour, quality and generalisability of findings.

中文翻译：

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增加四只腿而不是两条腿的身体活动：对狗促进的身体活动干预措施的系统评价

目标 定期步行是促进身体活动 (PA) 的关键目标，而遛狗对于大部分人群来说是一种可行的 PA 干预措施。本文的目的是回顾涉及犬类互动的 PA 干预措施并评估其有效性。本次审查的第二个目的是强调已应用的人群、环境、设计和干预组件，以便为未来的研究提供信息。设计系统审查。数据来源 我们使用六个常用数据库进行了截至 2019 年 8 月的文献检索。资格标准 研究包括在同行评审期刊上发表的论文和英语灰色文献（论文和论文），其中包括任何 PA 行为改变设计（即随机对照试验、准实验），专注于与犬类相关的干预。我们按人群、环境、媒介、研究设计和质量、理论和应用的行为改变技术对研究结果进行分组。结果 最初的搜索产生了 25 010 篇出版物，在筛选了资格标准后，这些出版物减少到 13 项中高偏倚风险的独立研究。干预 PA 的方法多种多样，包括借用狗、新狗主人和促进老狗主人之间的步行。研究结果一致表明，犬辅助干预确实增加了 PA（82% 的研究发生了有利于犬辅助干预的变化）。探索性子分析表明，特定的研究特征和方法可能会减轻影响。与随访时间较长的研究相比，随访时间较短的研究有利于犬类干预的行为改变，而不是控制条件。结论 基于犬的 PA 干预似乎有效，但未来的研究应该超越可行性和概念验证研究，以提高研究结果的严谨性、质量和普遍性。