Increasing participation in research with therapy dogs: A qualitative study at a large urban mental health and addiction hospital.

Laura Sikstrom,Theresa Conforti,Csilla Kalocsai,Eva Katz,Tamar Meyer,Sophie Soklaridis,Margaret Darragh,Amanda Cutler-Palma,Man-Man Choi,Rosemary Frey

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0238096

Laura Sikstrom, Theresa Conforti + Show 8 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238096

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Abstract

The benefits of involving patients as partners in research across diverse medical and psychiatric settings are well established in the literature. However, researchers continue to struggle to access, engage and retain participants from hard-to-reach populations. The main objective of this study was to co-create pet therapy activities with patients admitted for serious and complex mental illness to a large urban mental health and addiction hospital. Informed by the principles of participatory action research methodology, we conducted focus group discussions with 38 inpatients in seven different clinical units. An experienced volunteer handler and a certified therapy dog helped facilitate our discussions. Participating researchers, recreational therapists, volunteer handlers and our participants all reported that the presence of a certified therapy dog at each of our discussions was integral to their success. Certified therapy dogs increased the motivation to participate in our study, helped to build rapport with participants and created connections in our discussions that enriched our data. To our knowledge our study is the first to demonstrate the value of using a therapy dog as a participatory research tool in a healthcare setting. The authors believe that therapy dogs are a low-tech intervention that could be used effectively to engage hard-to-reach populations in research about their treatment and care in a diverse range of medical settings. These findings support the creation of a pilot study to test the value of including therapy dogs in patient-centered research with vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.

Highlights

IntroductionA qualitative study of trained therapy dogs at a large urban mental health and addiction hospital and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
[5] many qualitative research techniques rely on the desire and ability of the patient to effectively communicate their perspectives to researchers, which can be difficult in the midst of a mental health crisis. [6,7] While a range of techniques have been developed to recruit and engage patients in health research, to our knowledge our study is the first to demonstrate the value of using a certified therapy dog as a participatory research tool in a healthcare setting
Our study demonstrated that the presence of a certified therapy dog increased many patients’ motivation to participate in our study, improved the ability of researchers to build rapport with participants and helped create a safe and open atmosphere that enabled patients to connect with each other and researchers

Summary

Introduction

A qualitative study of trained therapy dogs at a large urban mental health and addiction hospital and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. [6,7] While a range of techniques have been developed to recruit and engage patients in health research, to our knowledge our study is the first to demonstrate the value of using a certified therapy dog as a participatory research tool in a healthcare setting. Hightech innovations are revolutionizing healthcare and patient outcomes, our study provides evidence that therapy dogs are a “no-tech” and low cost intervention that both humanizes the hospital experience and significantly improve efforts to engage patients in research. Rather our aim is to illustrate the value of including a therapy dog in qualitative research activities with hard-to-reach populations

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