A systematic review of stress measurement methods, sample size, study environment, and single or conspecific housing in studies on the domestic cat

This systematic review looks at studies which measured stress in domestic cats, and serves to highlight commonalities, differences, and gaps in sample size, sample location, solitary or conspecific housing and types of stress measurements in these studies. A search of the literature was conducted on November 30, 2015 using Web of Science and following the PRISMA flow diagram criteria (http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/FlowDiagram.aspx). The keywords used were "cat OR cats", "fel*", "behavio$r" and "stress" and keywords excluded were "mice", "mouse", and "rat*" which resulted in 88 articles. These articles were then screened to assess their relevance to the review topic, by selecting only articles conforming to two criteria: 1) the domestic cat was the subject of study, and 2) stress in cats was measured in at least one way as part of the study methods. Thirty-five of the original articles conformed to the criteria, and data was extracted from these articles in 5 categories: type of stress measurement, details of stress measurement, sample size, study environment, and single or group housing. This data was then analyzed for trends and presented within the final review paper.