Last year, SCAS Awarded Open Access funding to support the publication of this research.
The field of human-animal interaction has seen tremendous growth; more and more research is attempting to scientifically quantify how dogs may be beneficial for our health and wellbeing. As we continue to see this growth in the field, systematic literature reviews are incredibly important to summarise what we do and do not know, as well as identify gaps for future research.
A new systematic literature review published in PLOS ONE reviews the scientific literature on the psychosocial benefits of assistance dogs (including service, guide, hearing, and/or medical alert or response dogs) for their handlers. The specific aims were to:
1) describe the characteristics of these studies
2) evaluate the methodological rigor of these studies
3) summarise the findings across studies.
The review found 24 articles (half of which were peer-reviewed, half of which were theses) containing both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The authors found that most of the studies had a control or comparison condition, but identified several methodological weaknesses across studies including not accounting for confounding variables. In summarizing findings, authors found that having an assistance dog had no effect on psychosocial health and wellbeing for most outcomes measured. In studies that did report significant findings, having an assistance dog was associated with better psychological wellbeing, emotional functioning, self-esteem, and vitality. In conclusion, authors recommend that we need more high-quality research on this unique application of the human-animal bond.