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02 November 2026
Personalising parasite treatment for pets using online parasite risk assessment tools
This article explains how parasite risk assessment tools can help decision making when prescribing parasiticides.
UK cats and dogs are exposed to a wide range of parasites that may cause significant disease in pets or zoonotic risk for owners and the wider public. Parasite prevention is therefore essential to reduce these risks while maintaining the human-animal bond. Routine use of parasiticides forms a key part of parasite prevention, but “blanket” year-round treatment of all parasites has a number of disadvantages.
- Unnecessary drug exposure for the pet. However low the risk of drug reaction in an individual, this will be unnecessarily increased by exposure to drugs that are not required.
- Unnecessary expense for the owner. Expense for the owner can be reduced by a more targeted approach where a risk analysis deems this appropriate.
- Possible increased environmental impact. Continual blanket use would increase the opportunity for parasiticides to be introduced to the environment through being washed off, misapplied or possibly excreted in faeces or urine.
- Development of drug resistance? The risk of drug resistance developing in companion animals is lower than in ruminants and horses. Nevertheless, intensive use of parasiticides may drive drug resistance over time.
- Reduced owner compliance and credibility for the veterinary professional. There is a risk where blanket deworming of all cats and dogs is recommended that the public will see the advice as sales and profit driven rather than evidence based.
Prescribing routine parasite treatments on the basis of a risk assessment helps to reduce these issues while continuing to protect pets at significant risk of exposure. This is why a range of organisations, including ESCCAP, the BVA and BSAVA, all support a risk-based approach. In the busy practice environment, however, delivery of risk assessments can be difficult, and this is where risk checker tools can help to support risk-based prescribing.
Risk checker tools
Risk checkers are owner facing tools that may take a variety of forms to help gather patient and client data quickly, leading to an overall parasite risk assessment.
They include hard copy or online owner questionnaires and flow charts that owners can follow. Risk checker algorithms have also been developed online that calculate risk on the basis of a series of questions. These algorithms are complex and enable increased personalisation of the risk assessment. Risk checkers have a number of benefits in aiding the risk assessment process:
- They save time. It can be difficult to acquire all the information required for a risk assessment in the busy practice setting and risk checkers allow this information to be gathered quickly.
- They are easy for pet owners to complete and understand. Simple questions in the context of a pet’s lifestyle enable owners to complete risk assessment while understanding the reasoning behind them.
- They improve owner understanding and engagement. Risk checkers typically have simple, but informative, text and graphics alongside questions to make filling them out both entertaining and informative.
- They enable personalised protection for pets. By assessing an individual pet’s lifestyle and helping to quantify parasite risk based of the answers, tailor made parasite recommendation can then be made using this data.
By saving time and increasing engagement risk checkers make parasite risk assessment more likely to be achieved and recommendations be carried out by pet owners.
How to interpret risk checker results in practice
Risk checkers are excellent in framing parasite risk in a way owners can understand. They allow prescribing veterinary professionals to discuss that risk with the client and decide what treatment is appropriate, without recommending specific products. Converting a risk checker result into a treatment recommendation is a stepwise process.
- Discuss the relative risk for each parasite with the client and decide which parasites require routine treatment.
- Decide the frequency required – depending on the duration of action of the product or frequency of treatment required to minimise disease risk. Support for determining parasite treatment frequency can be found on the ESCCAP website.
- Discuss compliance and lifestyle factors. These include whether pets are regularly bathed or frequently swim. Owner preference for tablet, spot on, injection or collar should also be discussed to maximise compliance.
- Select a product that meets these criteria and prescribe at a suitable frequency.
Additional strategies for parasite prevention can then be discussed, such as checking dogs for ticks after walks.
Ian Wright BVMS BSc MSc MRCVS is a practising vet and co-owner of The Mount Veterinary Practice in Fleetwood, Lancashire. He has a master’s degree in veterinary parasitology and is chairman and director of the European Scientific Counsel Companion Animal Parasites (ESCCAP), as well as guidelines director for ESCCAP Europe.
