Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33935828›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2021

The Value of Companion Dogs as a Source of Social Support for Their Owners: Findings From a Pre-pandemic Representative Sample and a Convenience Sample Obtained During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Spain.

Jonathan Bowen, Antonio Bulbena, Jaume Fatjó

Abstract read
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In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
20citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

20 citing papers in PubMed.

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  13. Daily Mobility and Social Interactions Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults With Pet Dogs: A Scoping Review.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2022
    Article
  14. Pet ownership, feelings of loneliness, and mood in people affected by the first COVID-19 lockdown.Journal of veterinary behavior : clinical applications and research : official journal of : Australian Veterinary Behaviour Interest Group, International Working Dog Breeding Association · 2022
    Article
  15. Confronting SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Patients' Experience in the First Pandemic Wave-Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. The COVID-19 pandemic affects owners walking with their dogs.Journal of veterinary behavior : clinical applications and research : official journal of : Australian Veterinary Behaviour Interest Group, International Working Dog Breeding Association · 2022
    Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Jonathan BowenAffinity Foundation Chair for Animals and Health, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Antonio BulbenaAffinity Foundation Chair for Animals and Health, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Jaume FatjóAffinity Foundation Chair for Animals and Health, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Dogs are a source of companionship and comfort for their owners, but the degree to which this might translate into real emotional and social support has not been quantified. Emotional and social support are essential to help people to get through personal crises such as bereavement. In this study we characterize the social support owners obtain from their dogs, provide evidence of how widespread this social support is amongst dog-owners, and show how social support from dogs can increase during a crisis (using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example). We collected data from a representative population-based sample of Spanish dog-owners and found that most respondents said that their dogs helped them to get through tough times. They got comfort from physical contact with their dogs, shared activities with them and treated them as confidants in a similar way to friends and family. These are all key aspects of social support, and dogs offer the advantage of being more available than human sources of support. It would be expected that the support that dogs provide would be increased during a time of personal crisis and when we looked at data collected from a convenience sample of Spanish dog-owners during the COVID-19 confinement that is what we found; during the confinement owners engaged in more shared activities with their dogs, hugged them more often and turned to them more as a source of companionship and comfort (

Indexed as

bereavementCOVID-19crisisdogsocial support

Identifiers

PMID33935828
PMCPMC8081030

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.