Re-Evaluating the Benefits and Challenges of Communal Pet Dog Ownership at an Adult Residential Psychiatric Facility

Abstract

This qualitative study reevaluated findings of an earlier study, revealing Communal Pet Dog Ownership enhances client recovery and the environment at an adult psychiatric residential rehabilitation facility. Seven staff and seven clients completed surveys, interviews and focus group. Findings were similar to previous study. Seven beneficial themes emerged: improves mental health, improves emotional state, motivation to exercise, connectedness, positive environment, opportunities for a caring role and therapy. Two non-beneficial themes emerged: emotional impacts, burden of caring. Limitations include sample bias. More considerate utilization of a pet dog within the facility is suggested. Utilizing dogs for staff wellbeing merits further research.

Keywords:

• Animal assisted therapy
• psychosocial rehabilitation
• employee wellbeing
• pet therapy
• mental health recovery

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Research Assistant (Catherine Luah) for their valuable work on recruiting and interviewing participants, and disseminating surveys and collecting data. The authors also thank Dr Vinod Thacore for his mentorship and for reviewing the article and providing valuable edits, along with Tim Doman, who also took the time to review the article and provide recommendations which was greatly appreciated. This research was presented as an e-poster at the Occupational Therapy Australia Mental Health Forum November 2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Pam Maroney

Pam Maroney has 18 years of experience working as an Occupational Therapist in public mental health, within inpatient, community and rehabilitation settings. Her main experiences involve providing psychosocial rehabilitation programs for adults experiencing mental illness. She has been a project manager for a number of projects across the mental health sector, is a published researcher, and has been tutoring at Monash University for the past 8 years. More recently, Pam has commenced in a new role as an Occupational Therapy Clinical Educator for the Allied Health Graduate Program at Monash Health’s Mental Health Program.

Marianthi Kougioumtzis

Marianthi Kougioumtzis is an Occupational Therapist currently working in a community-based mental health service with Monash Health. She has four years of clinical experience delivering occupational therapy services in bed-based and community settings, including discipline specific and generalist mental health clinician roles.