Massie Gloeta N, Backstrom Louis J, Holland Daniel P, Paterson Mandy B A, Fuller Richard A
School of the Environment, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
Vet Q. 2025 Dec;45(1):1-12. doi: 10.1080/01652176.2025.2478138. Epub 2025 Apr 7.
Wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, and release is a global practice with a broad body of scientific literature; nonetheless, no studies have assessed and quantified the methodological rigour and reporting quality of this literature. In this PRISMA systematic review, we assessed and quantified the reporting of controls, randomisation, blinding, experimental animal data, and housing and husbandry data in 152 primary studies on wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, and release published between 1980 and 2021. We then tested for associations between reporting and study characteristics. Of the 152 reviewed studies, one study reported a control, randomisation, and blinding; 17 studies reported species, age, sex, weight, and body condition; and 14 studies reported housing size, housing location, type of food, provision of water, and provision of enrichment. No study reported all 13 of these elements. Studies published in veterinary-focused journals reported lower methodological rigour and had lower reporting quality than studies published in other types of journals. Studies on mammals had higher reporting quality than studies on birds and on reptiles, and studies that included the word "welfare" had higher reporting quality than studies that did not. The overall low methodological rigour and reporting quality of the literature limits study replicability and applicability and impedes meta-analyses.
野生动物救援、康复与放归是一项全球通行的实践活动，有着大量的科学文献；尽管如此，尚无研究对该文献的方法严谨性和报告质量进行评估和量化。在这项遵循系统评价与荟萃分析优先报告项目（PRISMA）的系统评价中，我们对1980年至2021年间发表的152项关于野生动物救援、康复与放归的原始研究中对照、随机化、盲法、实验动物数据以及饲养和管理数据的报告情况进行了评估和量化。然后，我们检验了报告与研究特征之间的关联。在这152项被审查的研究中，有1项研究报告了对照、随机化和盲法；17项研究报告了物种、年龄、性别、体重和身体状况；14项研究报告了饲养空间大小、饲养地点、食物类型、供水情况和丰富环境设置。没有一项研究报告了所有这13个要素。发表在以兽医为重点的期刊上的研究，其方法严谨性较低，报告质量也低于发表在其他类型期刊上的研究。关于哺乳动物的研究比关于鸟类和爬行动物的研究报告质量更高，并且包含“福利”一词的研究比不包含该词的研究报告质量更高。该文献总体较低的方法严谨性和报告质量限制了研究的可重复性和适用性，并阻碍了荟萃分析。
