Pet Grief: Tools to Assess Owners’ Bereavement and Veterinary Communication Skills

Abstract

In Italy, there are still very few studies on the psychological impact of losing a pet. The need to fill this gap springs from the fact that pet loss counseling services are increasingly being activated. The aim of this study is the Italian adaptation of instruments for veterinary counseling services. The survey instruments adapted were: Pet Bereavement Questionnaire (PBQ) to describe the individual experience of pet-grief; Regret of Bereaved Family Members (RBFM) to assess the family regret; Shared Decision-Making Questionnaire (SDM-Q-9) for decision making in end of life; Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure (CARE) to assess the veterinarian relational empathy during clinical encounters. All the instruments obtained good internal reliability, and the results of the confirmative factor analysis of all the Italian versions were in accordance with the original ones. The correlational analysis among the variables evidenced the following aspects: the more the owner feels involved by the veterinarian in the decision making process the more the veterinarian is perceived by the owner as empathetic; when the veterinarian is perceived as empathic and the decision making is shared the owners’ pet bereavement distress and regrets are reduced; negative dimensions of bereavement (grief, guilt, anger, intrusive thoughts and decisional regrets) are strictly linked to each other, therefore if one dimension increases or decreases the others do too. The path analysis suggests that developing a veterinary relationship-centered care practice may be beneficial for pet owners facing end-of-life issues and the death of their companion animals since it showed that shared-decision making strategies and empathic communication may reduce negative dimensions of bereavement that may complicate grief. Interestingly, adopting shared decision-making strategies may contribute to be perceived as more empathic. These aspects may be taken into consideration in end-of -life communication training in veterinary medicine.

Pet Humanisation and Related Grief: Development and Validation of a Structured Questionnaire Instrument to Evaluate Grief in People Who Have Lost a Companion Dog

“…Accordingly, the relatively high education level of respondents is not surprising. There was also a clear gender bias (96% female), but this too was expected [31,32]. Women have been reported to be more empathic and to have a higher concern for animal welfare compared with men [32,33].…”

“…There was also a clear gender bias (96% female), but this too was expected [31,32]. Women have been reported to be more empathic and to have a higher concern for animal welfare compared with men [32,33]. Thus, females may also be more willing to fill out online surveys on sensitive issues relating to pets than males.…”

“…All the total scores of the constructs were related to each other (PBQ, LAPS, AHCS, P-Scale, TDRS). Testoni reported a high correlation between PBQ and TDRS [32] as evidence that all these variables, which are typically described in Complicated grief in relation to human loss, also characterise pet loss.…”

The Endless Grief in Waiting: A Qualitative Study of the Relationship between Ambiguous Loss and Anticipatory Mourning amongst the Relatives of Missing Persons in Italy

“…The absence of the community binds mourners to the conviction that they will be able to solve the problem on their own at all costs, leading them to constantly undertake new research strategies. We find in this profile something similar to what is described as disenfranchised grief, i.e., those situations in which society does not know how to recognise the suffering of the sorrowful because it cannot give meaning to particular forms of loss [ 39 , 40 ]. In these cases, the community becomes a kind of limbo in which all relationships are characterised by ambiguity.…”

How management of grief associated with ending the life of an animal is taught to Australasian veterinary students

“…Grief management is the most widely discussed area of veterinary end-of-life (EoL) management e.g. 1,2,3 . The abundance of references to grief management in the veterinary, and related, literature implies that it is an important topic for owners and veterinarians.…”