Effect of Animal-Assisted Therapy on Patients in the Department of Long-Term Care: A Pilot Study

Kristýna Machová, Radka Procházková, Petra Eretová, Ivona Svobodová and Ilja Kotík
Additional contact information
Kristýna Machová: Department of Ethology and companion animal science, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Radka Procházková: Department of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Petra Eretová: Department of Ethology and companion animal science, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Ivona Svobodová: Department of Ethology and companion animal science, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Ilja Kotík: Department of Long Term Care, Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Central Military Hospital—Military University Hospital in Prague, 16902 Prague, Czech Republic

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 8, 1-10

Abstract: Long-term hospital stays might have a negative psychosocial impact on our patients. One way to positively activate hospitalized patients is to introduce animal-assisted therapy (AAT). A total of 72 individuals participated in this research. The experimental group comprised 33 patients (8 males, 25 females), while the control group contained 39 patients (11 men, 28 women). The participants in the control group were aged from 58 to 100 years and the experimental group featured participants aged from 51 to 95, for whom AAT was included alongside standard care. Blood pressure, heart rate, Barthel index, and general mood were measured in both groups. Results did not reveal any changes in blood pressure, heart rate, or Barthel index in comparison between groups. A great influence was noted in assessment of the mood of the patients. The inclusion of AAT did not affect physiological parameters, but it exerted a significant effect on the psychological well-being of the patients.

Keywords: animal-assisted therapy; long-term care; elderly; well-being; dog (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1362/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1362/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:8:p:1362-:d:223069

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().