PRM37 Development and Use of a Health-Related Quality of Life Tool to Help Veterinarians and Pet Owners Assess Aging Changes in Pet Dogs

Abstract

Many measures have been developed to assess the health-related quality of life (hrQoL) in humans but few have been developed for animals. Our goal was to develop a QoL instrument, completed by pet owners, that was able to reliably detect changes in QoL in healthy dogs as they age. An hrQoL tool was built with input from pet owners and veterinarians. The prototype QoL tool was tested with 167 pet owners of healthy dogs. A second survey was completed approximately two weeks later. Each pet owner was allowed to self-select their dog for inclusion, based on their personal assessment of the pet's health. The pet owners were veterinarian (n=34) and non-veterinarian (n=133) employees of Pfizer Animal Health. The validation process reduced the tool to 15 items in four domains (happiness, physical functioning, hygiene and mental status) and a single hrQoL assessment. The proposed hrQoL measure is brief (one page), has good known-groups and convergent validity, reliability and high internal consistency. When dogs were blocked by age into 3 year increments, the QOL score provided by the pet owner was high and essentially unchanged for the first 9 years. The pet owner QoL assessment dropped dramatically for dogs >10 years of age, mirroring the realization that the dog was “slowing down”. A calculated hrQoL score, derived from the component analysis, demonstrated a statistically significant (P<0.0001) and near-linear decline across age blocks as the dogs aged. A component analysis of many domains was also able to demonstrate a similar uniform age-related decline. Quality of life scoring can be used to help guide health care decisions for dogs as they age. Compared to the pet owner-derived score, using an hrQoL score derived from component analysis seems to be more reflective of the gradual age-related changes in a healthy dog.