An explorative clinical pilot study into the effect of service dogs on chronic posttraumatic stress disorder.

Abstract

Service dogs are increasingly used with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. This study explores how the companionship of a service dog may increase the control over PTSD symptoms, everyday functional abilities, and quality of life. A group of 4 veterans diagnosed with chronic, severe, combat-related PTSD were included in the study. All participants had undergone several unsuccessful psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatment attempts. All received a puppy at baseline and participated in training it toward becoming a service dog. All participated in monthly group meetings with a clinical psychologist. Symptom levels were screened at start and end of the intervention, as well as at follow-up, encompassing a 16-month study period. Though 3 out of 4 still had symptoms indicating probable PTSD at follow-up, all group members reported an increased ability to control their daily life problems, such as disturbed sleep, social isolation, physical inactivity, lack of emotional regulation, and reduced quality of life. Findings did not indicate clear and distinct changes in overall PTSD symptom levels. However, all participants reported higher quality of life and an enhanced perceived control of their symptoms. This discrepancy calls for further research into the mechanisms involved in living with a service dog, as well as better controlled research designs. Service dogs may provide a viable alternative intervention for PTSD patients with chronic symptoms, when continued and repeated psychotherapeutic or pharmacological interventions are ineffective.

Exploring the Role of Social Connection in Interventions With Military Veterans Diagnosed With Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Systematic Narrative Review

“…Six main themes were generated reflecting the findings of the 28 identified studies: (i) rethinking the diagnosis of PTSD; (ii) The age of veterans differed between the studies, most being non-specific with regards to age. Seventeen studies included veterans of all ages (Jones et al, 2000;Bensimon et al, 2008Bensimon et al, , 2012Holliday et al, 2015;Azevedo et al, 2016;Beidel et al, 2017;Bergen-Cico et al, 2018;Crowe et al, 2018;Johnson et al, 2018;Murphy, 2018, 2020;Pezzin et al, 2018;Weiss et al, 2018;Bolman, 2019;McLaughlin and Hamilton, 2019;Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020;Bauer et al, 2021), whereas four studies were age-specific by virtue of the criteria that they sought veterans from the Vietnam War (1961-75) (Obenchain and Silver, 1991;Ragsdale et al, 1996;Johnson et al, 2004;Otter and Currie, 2004) or Post-9/11/Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (Beidel et al, 2016;Lawrence et al, 2017Lawrence et al, , 2019Matthieu et al, 2017;Cushing et al, 2018). Three studies focused solely on female veterans, with two of these relating to rural female veterans who had suffered military sexual trauma (Azevedo et al, 2016;Weiss et al, 2018), and the other relating to a single case study (Trahan et al, 2016).…”

“…Eight studies utilized animal-focused interventions (Nevins et al, 2013;Trahan et al, 2016;Bergen-Cico et al, 2018;Crowe et al, 2018;Johnson et al, 2018;Bolman, 2019;McLaughlin and Hamilton, 2019;Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020). Three studies investigated the efficacy of music related interventions (Bensimon et al, 2008(Bensimon et al, , 2012Pezzin et al, 2018).…”

“…The vast majority of studies (n = 21) were carried out in the USA (Obenchain and Silver, 1991;Ragsdale et al, 1996;Jones et al, 2000;Johnson et al, 2004Johnson et al, , 2018Holliday et al, 2015;Azevedo et al, 2016;Beidel et al, 2016Beidel et al, , 2017Trahan et al, 2016;Lawrence et al, 2017Lawrence et al, , 2019Matthieu et al, 2017;Bergen-Cico et al, 2018;Crowe et al, 2018;Cushing et al, 2018;Pezzin et al, 2018;Weiss et al, 2018;Bolman, 2019;Bauer et al, 2021) whilst two were conducted in Israel (Bensimon et al, 2008(Bensimon et al, , 2012, two in the UK Murphy, 2018, 2020), one in Denmark (Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020) and two in Australia (Otter and Currie, 2004;McLaughlin and Hamilton, 2019).…”

“…Seven studies used a mixed-methods approach (Johnson et al, 2004;Bensimon et al, 2008Bensimon et al, , 2012Beidel et al, 2016Beidel et al, , 2017Bergen-Cico et al, 2018;Lobban and Murphy, 2020), 12 studies used a quantitative approach (Ragsdale et al, 1996;Holliday et al, 2015;Trahan et al, 2016;Lawrence et al, 2017Lawrence et al, , 2019Matthieu et al, 2017;Johnson et al, 2018;Lobban and Murphy, 2018;Pezzin et al, 2018;Weiss et al, 2018;Bauer et al, 2021) and nine used a qualitative approach (Obenchain and Silver, 1991;Jones et al, 2000;Otter and Currie, 2004;Azevedo et al, 2016;Crowe et al, 2018;Cushing et al, 2018;Bolman, 2019;McLaughlin and Hamilton, 2019;Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020). Within each broad methodological approach a variety of methods were employed; 11 studies employed focus groups or a groupcentric approach (Obenchain and Silver, 1991;Ragsdale et al, 1996;Jones et al, 2000;Johnson et al, 2004;Otter and Currie, 2004;Bensimon et al, 2008Bensimon et al, , 2012Crowe et al, 2018;Murphy, 2018, 2020;Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020), eight used semi-structured interviews (Johnson et al, 2004;…”

“…Two studies were quasiexperimental (Ragsdale et al, 1996;Bergen-Cico et al, 2018), two studies utilized a randomized trial (Johnson et al, 2018;Pezzin et al, 2018) and two a controlled trial (Beidel et al, 2016(Beidel et al, , 2017. Five studies were pilot analyses (Bensimon et al, 2012;Beidel et al, 2017;Pezzin et al, 2018;Weiss et al, 2018;Galsgaard and Eskelund, 2020).…”