Petmanship: Understanding Elderly Filipinos' Self-Perceived Health and Self-Esteem Captured from their Lived Experiences with Pet Companions

Abstract

Understanding of the lived experiences of geriatric clients with pets, particularly in the Western cultures, has been the subject of many studies. However, little is known about how Asian cultures, particularly the Filipino elderly, view their experiences with their pets in regard to their self-esteem and self-perceived health. This phenomenological study purports to capture the essence of the lived experiences of a select group of Filipino elderly with their pet companions in relation to their self-perceived health and self-esteem. A total of five Filipino elderly recruited from the Luzon area were involved in this study and were chosen through the snowballing technique. A three-part instrument was made by the researchers to gather data, namely robotfoto, semistructured interviews, and doodling activities. Field texts were analyzed via structural analysis through the aid of dendogram. Results of both cool and warm analysis have eidetically and interestingly described how the new coinage of petmanship, as introduced in the study, surfaced the functional and the instrumental views of pets relative to the elderly's self-esteem, vis-a-vis their Self-Efficacy Booster and Social Proactivity Builder roles in regard to self-perceived health. The metaphorical images drawn by the Filipino elderly surfaced the Roles Syndrome of Petmanship and the Rules Syndrome of Petmanship.