Therapy dogs help first-year students cope with stress, depression, and anxiety

Researchers suggest animal visitation programs could be a vital tool for supporting student mental health during the transition to university life.

Study: Effects of an Animal-Assisted Drop-In Program on First-Year University Students’ Trajectory of Psychological Wellbeing. Image Credit: Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock.com

In a recent study published in Pets, researchers explored how access to therapy dogs affected the mental health of university students in their first year of study.

Their findings show promising indications that programs involving therapy dogs can reduce stress, depression, and worry, supporting the well-being of students who are struggling to adjust to university life.

Background

Around the world, university students are facing increasing levels of stress and mental health challenges. The first semester is difficult for many as they adjust to several life changes. Research shows that positive emotions and psychological functioning can decrease during this time.

Students who are leaving their pets behind may be particularly vulnerable – 25% of them experience significant levels of separation anxiety in the week after they first arrive on campus.

Pets can be a critical coping resource and source of support; 70% of American households have pets, and four in five consider them family. This loss, when experienced with multiple other stressors, can lead to diminished academic performance, discontinuous enrolment, and heightened risk of mental health disorders.

Many universities offer animal visitation programs (AVPs), but most involve group interactions over short periods while students prepare for their final exams.

Drop-in programs where students can regularly access therapy animals as needed could be helpful to those suffering from separation anxiety.

About the study

Researchers used an experimental design to evaluate the impact of access to an AVP that included seven two-hour drop-in sessions with therapy dogs once every two weeks on the well-being of university students. These sessions featured unstructured interactions with trained dogs.

Participants were recruited over the summer before they began their first university semester. To be eligible for the study, students had to be at least 18, have a pet at home, complete a questionnaire to assess their attachment to their pet and provide information on risk factors such as prior symptoms of mental health.

Of the students who were invited to join the study, 209 consented, and 105 were randomly selected for the experimental group. At the same time, the remaining were placed on a waitlist as a control group. Waitlisted sessions had access to sessions after the end of the semester.

Nearly 90% of the experimental group had dogs, while almost half had cats. Most participants (85%) were women and 86% were Caucasian.

Nearly half reported having mental health challenges related to self-harm, anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Participants who provided baseline data on separation anxiety and completed at least one subsequent mental health assessment (either at midterm or during the semester’s end) were included in the analysis.

These assessments included symptoms of depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, emotional regulation, and self-compassion. There was no financial incentive to attend the therapy sessions, but students received a token amount for the assessments.

Statistical methods such as regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to map the difference in mental health trajectories of the experimental and control groups over the semester.

The analysis controlled for the number of sessions the students attended and their level of pet separation anxiety.

Findings

Students who experience high levels of separation anxiety also displayed more symptoms of stress, worry, anxiety, and depression at the start, middle, and end of the semester. However, there was little to no difference in emotional regulation and self-compassion.

Participants with access to the AVP program showed a generally flat trajectory for depressive symptoms, indicating that depression levels remained stable, contrasting with waitlisted students whose depression levels rose significantly.

High AVP attendance appeared to prevent worsening depression for students, no matter how high their separation anxiety levels were.

Anxiety levels decreased over time for both AVP-attending and waitlisted students, and there were no significant differences between the two.

While worry levels also decreased, this decrease appeared to be slightly greater for AVP-attending students compared to waitlisted ones. Stress for AVP-attending students decreased while waitlisted students experienced increasing levels of stress.

While the program did not appear to have any impact on emotional regulation, it did significantly improve self-compassion in the students who attended sessions; in contrast, self-compassion levels among waitlisted students decreased over the semester.

Conclusions

As students transition to university, they may experience declines in their mood and ability to function.

For participants in the experimental group, sessions with therapy dogs improved their well-being in terms of self-compassion, stress, worry, and depression, while waitlisted students experienced worsening symptoms.

These results indicate that drop-in therapy animal-assisted programs can help students who are separated from their pets cope better with stress and build resilience as they embark on their university journeys.