A Scoping Review of Equine Biomechanics Revisited

As techniques for equine biomechanical research have become more accessible and affordable, the literature published in this area has exploded. Literature reviews have become more popular of late and, more specifically, several literature reviews in areas related to equine biomechanics have been published. A scoping review is a relatively new approach, where a general aim is to map the body of literature on a topic area, accounting for criteria for inclusion and exclusion. However, problems can arise both in performing the review and in critiquing the findings. In this manuscript, the authors repeat a published scoping review of equine biomechanics aiming to map 'the existing literature in the field of equine movement analysis'. The search criteria from the previous study were reviewed and the performance of the search criteria was iteratively studied to find as many relevant papers as possible. The results yielded 77% more publications than the original review mainly as a consequence of not limiting the search strategy to papers including "equine" or "horse" in the title. The importance of using appropriate and inclusive search terms is highlighted together with evaluating the findings within the context of the discipline and time frame of the review.