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The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer
There has been almost no research on associations of companion animals with quality of life in sexual minorities. Because gay and bisexual men have less social support than their heterosexual peers, some have argued that pet companionship could provide emotional support, while others have argued the...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6888196/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31766206 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224457 |
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author | Wright, Morgan M. Schreiner, Pamela Rosser, B. R. Simon Polter, Elizabeth J. Mitteldorf, Darryl West, William Ross, Michael W. |
author_facet | Wright, Morgan M. Schreiner, Pamela Rosser, B. R. Simon Polter, Elizabeth J. Mitteldorf, Darryl West, William Ross, Michael W. |
author_sort | Wright, Morgan M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | There has been almost no research on associations of companion animals with quality of life in sexual minorities. Because gay and bisexual men have less social support than their heterosexual peers, some have argued that pet companionship could provide emotional support, while others have argued the opposite, that having a pet is another stressor. This analysis examines the association between having dogs, cats, both animals, or no animals and quality of life using the 12-item Short Form (SF-12) mental and physical composite quality of life scores for gay and bisexual prostate cancer survivors, post-treatment. Participants were 189 gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, who completed online surveys in 2015. Linear regression analysis found that participants with cats and participants with dogs had lower mental quality of life scores than participants without pets. After adjustment for covariates, mental health scores remained significantly lower for cat owners, dog owners, and owners of both animals compared to those of participants who did not have pets. No differences were seen for physical quality of life scores after adjustment. We conclude that pet companionship may be a net stressor for gay and bisexual men following prostate cancer treatment. As this is the first study of pet companionship in sexual minorities, further research is needed to confirm the reliability of these findings, generalizability, and temporality of the association. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6888196 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-68881962019-12-09 The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer Wright, Morgan M. Schreiner, Pamela Rosser, B. R. Simon Polter, Elizabeth J. Mitteldorf, Darryl West, William Ross, Michael W. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article There has been almost no research on associations of companion animals with quality of life in sexual minorities. Because gay and bisexual men have less social support than their heterosexual peers, some have argued that pet companionship could provide emotional support, while others have argued the opposite, that having a pet is another stressor. This analysis examines the association between having dogs, cats, both animals, or no animals and quality of life using the 12-item Short Form (SF-12) mental and physical composite quality of life scores for gay and bisexual prostate cancer survivors, post-treatment. Participants were 189 gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, who completed online surveys in 2015. Linear regression analysis found that participants with cats and participants with dogs had lower mental quality of life scores than participants without pets. After adjustment for covariates, mental health scores remained significantly lower for cat owners, dog owners, and owners of both animals compared to those of participants who did not have pets. No differences were seen for physical quality of life scores after adjustment. We conclude that pet companionship may be a net stressor for gay and bisexual men following prostate cancer treatment. As this is the first study of pet companionship in sexual minorities, further research is needed to confirm the reliability of these findings, generalizability, and temporality of the association. MDPI 2019-11-13 2019-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6888196/ /pubmed/31766206 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224457 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 Wright, Morgan M. Schreiner, Pamela Rosser, B. R. Simon Polter, Elizabeth J. Mitteldorf, Darryl West, William Ross, Michael W. The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title | The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title_full | The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title_fullStr | The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title_full_unstemmed | The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title_short | The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer |
title_sort | influence of companion animals on quality of life of gay and bisexual men diagnosed with prostate cancer |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6888196/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31766206 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224457 |
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