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According to researchers, patients in the emergency room who spent 10 minutes with a therapy dog reported less discomfort than before the animal’s visit
According to a new study, dogs can benefit people in the emergency room suffering from pain.
Humans can benefit from spending as little as 10 minutes with a dog by lessening pain, anxiety, and despair, according to a study published in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday.
The researchers gathered information from over 200 emergency room patients at The Royal University Hospital Emergency Department in Saskatchewan, Canada, which was chosen for its “longstanding visiting therapy dog program.”
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Patients who were awaiting a doctor’s appointment, in treatment, or waiting for a bed were asked to rate their discomfort on a scale of one to ten (the highest). The patients were split into 02 groups: the control group, which did not interact with the therapy dogs, and the treatment group, which did.
Following their session with the dogs, the treatment group reported decreased pain.
“During the post-intervention measurement, individuals within the therapy dog team group judged pain substantially less than those within the control group,” consistent within the study.
“The study’s findings are encouraging,” Jessica Chubak, a senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, told CNN in an email.
Clark, who was not engaged in the study, made the following observation: “The current state of knowledge regarding the effects of therapy dog visits in emergency rooms is minimal. As a result, more research in this area is critical.”
Colleen Dell, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s One Health and Wellness Research Chair, told CNN, “According to research, pets are beneficial to human health in a variety of ways. They inspire us, get us up in the morning, (give us) routines, and strengthen the human-animal link.”
Dell said that she hopes the study’s findings encourage people to stop debating whether therapy dogs are beneficial and instead focus on better integrating them into our healthcare systems.
