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Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan

With many children and young adolescents reporting strong emotional bonds with their pets, the impact of pet ownership on child/adolescent health—especially on their emotional development—has garnered increasing scientific interest. We examined the association between pet ownership in toddlerhood (a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sato, Rikako, Fujiwara, Takeo, Kino, Shiho, Nawa, Nobutoshi, Kawachi, Ichiro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6427570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30832360
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16050758
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author Sato, Rikako
Fujiwara, Takeo
Kino, Shiho
Nawa, Nobutoshi
Kawachi, Ichiro
author_facet Sato, Rikako
Fujiwara, Takeo
Kino, Shiho
Nawa, Nobutoshi
Kawachi, Ichiro
author_sort Sato, Rikako
collection PubMed
description With many children and young adolescents reporting strong emotional bonds with their pets, the impact of pet ownership on child/adolescent health—especially on their emotional development—has garnered increasing scientific interest. We examined the association between pet ownership in toddlerhood (age 3.5 years) and poor emotional expression in later childhood (age 5.5 years) using propensity score matching within a longitudinal cohort dataset from Japan (n = 31,453). A propensity score for pet ownership was calculated by logistic models based on a comprehensive list of each child’s observed characteristics, including sex, household income, parental education, mother’s employment status, residential environment, number of siblings, and living arrangement. Log-binomial regression analyses using matched samples revealed that children who owned pets during the toddler years were 6% less likely to have a poor emotional expression in later childhood (prevalence ratio = 0.94, 95% confidence interval = 0.90–0.99) compared to those without pets. This suggests that owning pets may provide children with opportunities to control their emotions, and lead to a lower prevalence of poor emotional expression. Pet ownership in toddlerhood may contribute to the development of expression.
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spelling pubmed-64275702019-04-10 Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan Sato, Rikako Fujiwara, Takeo Kino, Shiho Nawa, Nobutoshi Kawachi, Ichiro Int J Environ Res Public Health Article With many children and young adolescents reporting strong emotional bonds with their pets, the impact of pet ownership on child/adolescent health—especially on their emotional development—has garnered increasing scientific interest. We examined the association between pet ownership in toddlerhood (age 3.5 years) and poor emotional expression in later childhood (age 5.5 years) using propensity score matching within a longitudinal cohort dataset from Japan (n = 31,453). A propensity score for pet ownership was calculated by logistic models based on a comprehensive list of each child’s observed characteristics, including sex, household income, parental education, mother’s employment status, residential environment, number of siblings, and living arrangement. Log-binomial regression analyses using matched samples revealed that children who owned pets during the toddler years were 6% less likely to have a poor emotional expression in later childhood (prevalence ratio = 0.94, 95% confidence interval = 0.90–0.99) compared to those without pets. This suggests that owning pets may provide children with opportunities to control their emotions, and lead to a lower prevalence of poor emotional expression. Pet ownership in toddlerhood may contribute to the development of expression. MDPI 2019-03-02 2019-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6427570/ /pubmed/30832360 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16050758 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sato, Rikako
Fujiwara, Takeo
Kino, Shiho
Nawa, Nobutoshi
Kawachi, Ichiro
Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title_full Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title_fullStr Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title_full_unstemmed Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title_short Pet Ownership and Children’s Emotional Expression: Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Longitudinal Data from Japan
title_sort pet ownership and children’s emotional expression: propensity score-matched analysis of longitudinal data from japan
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6427570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30832360
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16050758
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