Improvement to the subjective well-being of pet ownership may have positive psychological influence during COVID-19 epidemic

Examining evidence for a relationship between human-animal interactions and common mental disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review

Introduction

COVID-19 lockdowns, shelter in place, closures of transportation and mental health services, and dearth of mental health providers created new barriers to obtaining support for mental health needs at a time of increased rates of anxiety and depression. During the pandemic, a record number of households owned and adopted pets, opening a potential avenue to investigate the relationship between pets and mental health. This systematic literature review examined the question: What is the evidence for a relationship between human-animal interaction and/or animal ownership and common mental disorders among adults who interacted with pets compared to adults who did not during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Methods

To address this question, four databases were searched: Medline, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and SCOPUS for peer-reviewed literature published between 2020 and July 2023. Of the 1,746 articles identified by the searches, 21 studies were included in this review.

Results

Results suggest that there exists a relationship between animal ownership and strong pet attachment and pet interaction, though the directionality of the relationship was not investigated by the included studies. There was an association between having a stronger relationship with a pet and lower feelings of depression and other mental health symptoms. There was also evidence of an association between anxiety and higher levels of animal attachment.

Conclusion

Understanding the association between human-animal interaction and common mental disorders may be helpful to clinicians assessing the mental health of clients. Clinicians may glean additional insight about stressors, risk factors, social supports, and lifestyle of clients based on the client's status as a pet owner. Future research could further explore the direction of the causal relationship of human-animal interaction and/or animal ownership on common mental disorders; this could further inform how the HAI relationship can be used to support clients with mental health struggles.

The Perks of Pet Ownership? The Effects of Pet Ownership on Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Pet ownership has often been lauded as a protective factor for well-being, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We expanded this question to consider how pet (i.e., species, number) and owner (i.e., pet relationship quality, personality, attachment orientations) characteristics affected the association between pet ownership and well-being in a pre-registered mixed method analysis of 767 people assessed three times in May 2020. In our qualitative analyses, pet owners listed both benefits and costs of pet ownership during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our quantitative analyses, we found that pet ownership was not reliably associated with well-being. Furthermore, this association largely did not depend on the number of pets owned, the species of pet(s) owned, the quality of the human-pet relationship, or the owner's psychological characteristics. Our findings are consistent with a large body of research showing null associations of pet ownership on well-being (quantitatively) but positive reports of pet ownership (qualitatively).

The Well-Being of Companion Animal Caregivers and Their Companion Animals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

It is important to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on animal caregivers and their companion animals in order to inform responses to future crises. Prior research is inconsistent, with the benefits of animal companionship believed to be overstated. In this scoping review, we searched four electronic databases and hand-searched reference lists of included studies. Over 4000 citations were found, and 122 were included in the review. Reflecting on the pre-COVID literature, quantitative evidence of the association between psychological well-being and animal companionship during the pandemic was mixed, with numerous positive, negative, and null findings reported. Studies highlighted the benefits of animal companionship during the pandemic, with animals reported to provide their caregivers with a routine, a sense of greater purpose, a positive distraction from COVID-19, companionship, and emotional support. However, participants also reported concerns about meeting animals' needs, fears of animals catching or spreading the virus, and financial worries. Concerns about what would happen to animals if caregivers were hospitalized led some to delay COVID-19 testing or treatment. Animals also experienced benefits (such as increased companionship and calmer mood) and negative impacts (such as increased clinginess and separation anxiety). Companion animals should be a key consideration in emergency preparedness plans.

Moral decision-making in pettism: The influence of animal type, pet ownership status, and social distance

Speciesism prioritizes humans over animals and pets. Nevertheless, pet owners have a strong attachment bond with their pets, which makes their hierarchical view of pets less clear. Aiming to examine this issue, we present a dilemma involving animals and humans that allowed us to investigate whether animal type, social distance, and pet ownership status can affect moral decision-making related to pets. Save-willingness results showed that in the moral dilemmas of pets versus livestock versus wild animals (Studies 1a and 2a) and their own pets versus strangers (Studies 1b and 2b), pet owners prioritize pets whereas non-owners prioritize pets (Studies 1a and 2a) and strangers (Studies 1b and 2b). Pet owners prefer to save pets more than do non-owners (Study 1a), and this effect was only observed in females (Study 2a). Save-decision results showed that in the moral dilemmas of pets versus livestock versus wild animals (Study 2a), pet owners prioritize pets whereas in the dilemmas of pets versus strangers (Study 2b), pet owners prioritize strangers. The same result was found in non-owners. Pet owners prefer more than do non-owners to save pets (Study 2). Overall, the separation of save-willingness and save-decision results revealed that pet owners show special speciesism (i.e., pettism).