Exploring Dog-Assisted Interventions in Higher Education: Students’ Attitudes and Perceived Effects on Well-Being

Cathrin Rothkopf and Silke Schworm
Additional contact information
Cathrin Rothkopf: Department of Educational Science, University of Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany
Silke Schworm: Department of Educational Science, University of Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: Both, in the transition to university and during it, students experience a multitude of different changes. Thus, it is no surprise that many students in higher education report suffering from mental health problems. To address their concerns, animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have gained more and more attention over the past few years. Nonetheless, AAIs have neither yet been used nor researched at German universities. Two studies were carried out to address this issue. In Study I, 709 university students answered a questionnaire evaluating their attitude towards dogs, AAIs and interest in its use at their home university. In Study II, 27 students participated in a dog-assisted intervention (DAI) in which they were allowed to interact with a qualified dog for 15 min. To gain information about their well-being, blood pressure was measured and the Basler Befindlichkeitsskala had to be answered before and after the intervention. Results showed a positive attitude among German students toward dogs, AAIs, and the use of DAIs at their home university. Although an effect on physical well-being could not be found, results showed that a 15-min DAI can improve students’ psychological well-being. Thus, higher education administrators should consider using DAIs as a way to improve student well-being.

Keywords: human–animal interaction; animal-assisted intervention; higher education; at-risk students; attitude; interest; well-being; blood pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4492/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4492/ (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:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4492-:d:542291

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 ().