IF you notice something amiss with your horse, or your vet has just been out to examine him/her and put a name on the problem, the internet is often the first point of call for further information in today’s online world. The problem is figuring out what to believe and what to ignore!

There is a wealth of data available but it varies enormously in both quality and accuracy. It is very easy to find yourself googling the words uttered by your vet and immediately getting bogged down in thousands of alarming articles pronouncing the end of your athlete’s career.

There are also plenty of sites peddling miracle cures and guaranteeing astounding success rates. These were memorably described to me as being of “dubious composition and questionable efficacy” by my microbiology lecturer at UCD: Professor P.J. Quinn, a distinguished veterinary researcher of great integrity.

To help find reliable and science-based information online it’s useful to understand how veterinary research into animal health is conducted and shared. Veterinary schools employ vets to treat the animals that are referred to them for specialist care.

As well as teaching students and caring for animals, vet school staff members are also involved in research to develop and refine new treatments.

A number of private practices are also actively involved in clinical research. Once a treatment or medicine has been developed and used, it’s important that the results are published, so that all veterinary professionals and animal owners can benefit from the knowledge.

SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS

Like new developments in human medicine, veterinary research is usually first published in scientific journals that use a quality control process called “peer review”. Once the researcher/veterinary clinician has written up the results of their work they send it to the editor of the journal they wish to publish it in.

The editor then sends the article on to two or more experts on the topic. The experts review the work and, if the methods used and the results obtained are valid and reliable in their opinion, they will recommend to the editor to go ahead and publish the article. This review process is conducted anonymously, so the work is judged on its own merits.

The Equine Veterinary Journal (EVJ) of the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) is just one example of a peer-reviewed journal that has a reputation for publishing high quality equine veterinary research.

It is published monthly and has a wide readership amongst horse vets. Closer to home, the Veterinary Ireland Journal (VIJ) includes a peer-reviewed research section which frequently carries articles on equine-related topics.

HORSE OWNERS

It costs money to collate and publish high quality research so many journals either require a fee to publish in them and/or a subscription to read their contents. This can act as a barrier in making their contents widely available.

Online publishing, with its lower associated costs, has seen the rise of more “open access” journals in the last decade. These don’t require the reader to pay to read, making high quality research findings available to a wider audience.

So having access to quality research is important for vets to keep abreast with new developments and treatments. But what about horse owners?

Specialist research articles can be quite “dry” and hard to read without medical knowledge and an understanding of basic statistics. This has created a demand for veterinary research developments to be written up in layman’s terms for a general audience. For example, Horse And Hound magazine reported this week that almost one in three horses in the UK suffer from lameness, based on the eighth National Equine Health Survey conducted by the Blue Cross and BEVA.

The Horse magazine carries similar articles, typically based on the high quality research conducted by members of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP).

Published articles will tell you who carried out the research, and where it was conducted, as well as the results obtained. This is important as conditions that arise in horse populations vary depending on their geographical location.

For example, colic caused by horses ingesting small quantities of sand in their feed is common in the hot and arid grazing conditions associated with California, but is rarely a problem in wet and green Ireland! A Google search is unlikely to help you make this important distinction, as it is too general and will pull up all articles that mention “horse” and “colic”.

CHECKING CREDENTIALS

It’s also important to know who carried out the research, so that their credentials can be checked. Researchers devote their careers to veterinary progress, so they want their name to be associated with high quality work that they can stand over.

Veterinary schools and universities will have a section on their website where you can look up their staff and see what their areas of expertise are. Beware of anonymous articles, especially if they are making any sort of “miracle cure” claims and/or are asking for payment for treatments. Reputable publishers will make it clear when an article is an advertisement or a promotion versus a research summary or clinical advice.

So in summary, when pulling out your smartphone to google conditions like “suspensory branch injury” or “equine tapeworm” keep the following general guidelines in mind.

Be wary of articles that:

If you’re unsure about the quality of a resource, run it by your vet. It’s fantastic for vets when clients are motivated to find out more about their horse’s condition and really understand its management. It’s in everyone’s interests to base patient care on reliable and sound scientific knowledge and the horse will ultimately be the one to benefit most from it!

Karen Dunne MVB, MA, CertEm (Stud Med) is a veterinary surgeon and veterinary programme director at Dundalk Institute of Technology. She is a member of the Equine Group of Veterinary Ireland.

Email: hq@vetireland.ie

Telephone: 01-4577976