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The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization

Individuals working in high-risk occupations (e.g., emergency staff) are exposed to high levels of occupational stress including traumatic events. Correspondingly, several studies report high rates of mental health problems among these occupations. Pet ownership has been associated with better menta...

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Autores principales: Lass-Hennemann, Johanna, Schäfer, Sarah K., Sopp, M. Roxanne, Michael, Tanja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178020/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32276495
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072562
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author Lass-Hennemann, Johanna
Schäfer, Sarah K.
Sopp, M. Roxanne
Michael, Tanja
author_facet Lass-Hennemann, Johanna
Schäfer, Sarah K.
Sopp, M. Roxanne
Michael, Tanja
author_sort Lass-Hennemann, Johanna
collection PubMed
description Individuals working in high-risk occupations (e.g., emergency staff) are exposed to high levels of occupational stress including traumatic events. Correspondingly, several studies report high rates of mental health problems among these occupations. Pet ownership has been associated with better mental health. However, to date a study on the association between pet ownership and indicators of mental health in these occupations is missing. The present cross-sectional survey (N = 580) investigated pet ownership, attachment to pets, health-benefitting factors (i.e., sense of coherence, trait-resilience, locus of control) and psychopathological symptoms (i.e., general mental health problems, posttraumatic stress, burnout) in medical staff, police officers, and firefighters. Dog owners and non-dog owners showed comparable levels of psychopathological distress and health-benefitting factors. Compared to cat owners, dog owners demonstrated stronger emotional attachment to their pet. Moreover, a stronger attachment was also linked to higher levels of psychopathological symptoms and lower levels of health-benefitting factors. However, the relationship between attachment to pets and health-benefitting factors could be explained by their overlap with psychopathological symptom levels. Overall, our findings are not in line with the notion that pet ownership generally has a health-benefitting effect. Future studies need to investigate circumstances that modulate positive effects of pet ownership.
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spelling pubmed-71780202020-04-28 The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization Lass-Hennemann, Johanna Schäfer, Sarah K. Sopp, M. Roxanne Michael, Tanja Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Individuals working in high-risk occupations (e.g., emergency staff) are exposed to high levels of occupational stress including traumatic events. Correspondingly, several studies report high rates of mental health problems among these occupations. Pet ownership has been associated with better mental health. However, to date a study on the association between pet ownership and indicators of mental health in these occupations is missing. The present cross-sectional survey (N = 580) investigated pet ownership, attachment to pets, health-benefitting factors (i.e., sense of coherence, trait-resilience, locus of control) and psychopathological symptoms (i.e., general mental health problems, posttraumatic stress, burnout) in medical staff, police officers, and firefighters. Dog owners and non-dog owners showed comparable levels of psychopathological distress and health-benefitting factors. Compared to cat owners, dog owners demonstrated stronger emotional attachment to their pet. Moreover, a stronger attachment was also linked to higher levels of psychopathological symptoms and lower levels of health-benefitting factors. However, the relationship between attachment to pets and health-benefitting factors could be explained by their overlap with psychopathological symptom levels. Overall, our findings are not in line with the notion that pet ownership generally has a health-benefitting effect. Future studies need to investigate circumstances that modulate positive effects of pet ownership. MDPI 2020-04-08 2020-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7178020/ /pubmed/32276495 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072562 Text en © 2020 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
Lass-Hennemann, Johanna
Schäfer, Sarah K.
Sopp, M. Roxanne
Michael, Tanja
The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title_full The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title_fullStr The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title_full_unstemmed The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title_short The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
title_sort relationship between dog ownership, psychopathological symptoms and health-benefitting factors in occupations at risk for traumatization
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178020/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32276495
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072562
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