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Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs

Using an app, this exploratory study generated information on HRQL in a large cohort of dogs deemed healthy according to the owner. It forms the basis for further studies investigating the natural history of HRQL of dogs to inform the interpretation of interventional studies, but highlights the risk...

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Autores principales: Rodger, Susan, Scott, E Marian, Nolan, Andrea, Wright, Andrea K, Reid, Jacqueline
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892584/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33614760
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.603139
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author Rodger, Susan
Scott, E Marian
Nolan, Andrea
Wright, Andrea K
Reid, Jacqueline
author_facet Rodger, Susan
Scott, E Marian
Nolan, Andrea
Wright, Andrea K
Reid, Jacqueline
author_sort Rodger, Susan
collection PubMed
description Using an app, this exploratory study generated information on HRQL in a large cohort of dogs deemed healthy according to the owner. It forms the basis for further studies investigating the natural history of HRQL of dogs to inform the interpretation of interventional studies, but highlights the risks of relying on owner impression of health status. A previously published health-related quality of life (HRQL) instrument (VetMetrica™) that generates scores in four domains of quality of life in dogs - Energetic and Enthusiastic (E/E), Happy and Content (H/C), Active and Comfortable (A/C), and Calm and Relaxed (C/R), generated information on HRQL in 4,217 dogs (3 months−21 years). Dogs were categorized by age; young, 3–47 months, middle-aged, 48–95 months, and old, 96 months and older. Owners considered 2,959 dogs (3–95 months) to be “in perfect health” and these were used to explore the relationship between age, sex, breed and HRQL in apparently healthy dogs. Mean score was significantly greater (better) in young compared to middle-aged dogs in E/E, H/C and A/C and declined with advancing age. In H/C there was a small but significant difference in mean score between female and male dogs (mean greater in females), with a similar rate of decline in each gender with advancing age. In E/E there were very small but statistically significant differences in mean scores between certain breeds. In A/C there was a statistically significant interaction between breed and age and the rate of decline with advancing age differed with breed. Overall, age, breed, and sex predicted very little of the variation seen in HRQL scores. Data from a subset of 152 dogs, for whom clinical information was available, were used to examine the agreement between clinical evidence and owner opinion. According to the clinical records, 89 dogs were healthy and 63 had evidence of chronic disease. There was an approximately 40% disagreement between owner opinion on health status and clinical evidence of chronic disease (35% disagreement in all dogs and 43% in old dogs). HRQL scores were generally higher in dogs for whom there was no evidence of disease in the clinical record.
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spelling pubmed-78925842021-02-20 Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs Rodger, Susan Scott, E Marian Nolan, Andrea Wright, Andrea K Reid, Jacqueline Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Using an app, this exploratory study generated information on HRQL in a large cohort of dogs deemed healthy according to the owner. It forms the basis for further studies investigating the natural history of HRQL of dogs to inform the interpretation of interventional studies, but highlights the risks of relying on owner impression of health status. A previously published health-related quality of life (HRQL) instrument (VetMetrica™) that generates scores in four domains of quality of life in dogs - Energetic and Enthusiastic (E/E), Happy and Content (H/C), Active and Comfortable (A/C), and Calm and Relaxed (C/R), generated information on HRQL in 4,217 dogs (3 months−21 years). Dogs were categorized by age; young, 3–47 months, middle-aged, 48–95 months, and old, 96 months and older. Owners considered 2,959 dogs (3–95 months) to be “in perfect health” and these were used to explore the relationship between age, sex, breed and HRQL in apparently healthy dogs. Mean score was significantly greater (better) in young compared to middle-aged dogs in E/E, H/C and A/C and declined with advancing age. In H/C there was a small but significant difference in mean score between female and male dogs (mean greater in females), with a similar rate of decline in each gender with advancing age. In E/E there were very small but statistically significant differences in mean scores between certain breeds. In A/C there was a statistically significant interaction between breed and age and the rate of decline with advancing age differed with breed. Overall, age, breed, and sex predicted very little of the variation seen in HRQL scores. Data from a subset of 152 dogs, for whom clinical information was available, were used to examine the agreement between clinical evidence and owner opinion. According to the clinical records, 89 dogs were healthy and 63 had evidence of chronic disease. There was an approximately 40% disagreement between owner opinion on health status and clinical evidence of chronic disease (35% disagreement in all dogs and 43% in old dogs). HRQL scores were generally higher in dogs for whom there was no evidence of disease in the clinical record. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7892584/ /pubmed/33614760 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.603139 Text en Copyright © 2021 Rodger, Scott, Nolan, Wright and Reid. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Rodger, Susan
Scott, E Marian
Nolan, Andrea
Wright, Andrea K
Reid, Jacqueline
Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title_full Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title_fullStr Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title_full_unstemmed Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title_short Effect of Age, Breed, and Sex on the Health-Related Quality of Life of Owner Assessed Healthy Dogs
title_sort effect of age, breed, and sex on the health-related quality of life of owner assessed healthy dogs
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892584/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33614760
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.603139
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