The Pawsitive Effect of Therapy Dogs in a Hospital Emergency Department

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk694

Keywords:

pain, animal assisted intervention, therapy dogs, wellness, health

Abstract

Pain is the main reason people attend an emergency department. Our study examined the effect of a therapy dog visit on reducing patient pain in an ED. We found that pain improved after the dog visit compared to no change in control patients. Patient anxiety, depression, and well-being also improved. These findings help to establish the potential value of therapy dogs in an emergency setting.

Author Biographies

Ben Carey, University of Saskatchewan

Researcher

Colleen Anne Dell, University of Saskatchewan

Professor

Alexandria R Pavelich, University of Saskatchewan

PhD Student

Original article reference

Carey, B., Dell, C.A., Stempien, J., Tupper, S., Rohr, B., Carr, E., Cruz, M., Acoose, S., Butt, P., Broberg, L. and Collard, L. (2022). Outcomes of a controlled trial with visiting therapy dog teams on pain in adults in an emergency department. PloS one, 17(3), p.e0262599.

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Published

2023-04-14

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2023): TheScienceBreaker

Section

Health & Physiology

License

Some rights reserved 2023 Ben Carey, Colleen Anne Dell, Alexandria R Pavelich

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.