Psychiatria pre prax 3/2021

Canistherapy as a possible adjunct to standard treatment of psychiatric patients – An empirical corroboration

Despite the fact that the relationship between man and animal has been documented for thousands of years and therapy with the help of an animal is an increasingly used intervention, canistherapy is not considered as an official treatment method in Slovakia and research findings on this topic are limited. In this research, we aimed to corroborate the effect of canistherapy as a supplement to the standard treatment of psychiatric patients (N = 97). Hospitalized patients were divided into experimental or control group. The experimental group underwent canistherapy once a week. The Control group consisted of patients without intervention. Participants completed a self-assessment questionnaire (BDI-II) upon admission as well as before they were discharged. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in the BDI-II score between the canistherapy group and the control group, even after we accounted for the variance in the BDI-II at admission (pre-test), age and gender of patients. These results point out the prospect of further research into canistherapy as an adjunct to standard patient care.

Keywords: canistherapy, animal-assisted therapy, dog, depression symptoms, psychiatric patients