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Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment
Restrictions, social isolation, and uncertainty related to the global COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the ways that parents and children maintain family routines, health, and wellbeing. Companion animals (pets) can be a critical source of comfort during traumatic experiences, although changes to fa...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9312405/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271687 |
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author | Bennetts, Shannon K. Crawford, Sharinne B. Howell, Tiffani J. Burgemeister, Fiona Chamberlain, Catherine Burke, Kylie Nicholson, Jan M. |
author_facet | Bennetts, Shannon K. Crawford, Sharinne B. Howell, Tiffani J. Burgemeister, Fiona Chamberlain, Catherine Burke, Kylie Nicholson, Jan M. |
author_sort | Bennetts, Shannon K. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Restrictions, social isolation, and uncertainty related to the global COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the ways that parents and children maintain family routines, health, and wellbeing. Companion animals (pets) can be a critical source of comfort during traumatic experiences, although changes to family routines, such as those caused by COVID-19, can also bring about challenges like managing undesirable pet behaviours or pet-human interactions. We aimed to examine the relationship between pet attachment and mental health for both parents and their children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. A total of 1,034 parents living with a child under 18 years and a cat or dog completed an online cross-sectional survey between July and October 2020. Path analysis using multivariate linear regression was conducted to examine associations between objective COVID-19 impacts, subjective worry about COVID-19, human-pet attachment, and mental health. After adjusting for core demographic factors, stronger pet-child attachment was associated with greater child anxiety (parent-reported, p < .001). Parent-pet attachment was not associated with self-reported psychological distress (p = .42), however, parents who reported a strong emotional closeness with their pet reported greater psychological distress (p = .002). Findings highlight the role of pets during times of change and uncertainty. It is possible that families are turning to animals as a source of comfort, during a time when traditional social supports are less accessible. Alternatively, strong pet attachment is likely to reflect high levels of empathy, which might increase vulnerability to psychological distress. Longitudinal evidence is required to delineate the mechanisms underpinning pet attachment and mental health. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9312405 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93124052022-07-26 Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment Bennetts, Shannon K. Crawford, Sharinne B. Howell, Tiffani J. Burgemeister, Fiona Chamberlain, Catherine Burke, Kylie Nicholson, Jan M. PLoS One Research Article Restrictions, social isolation, and uncertainty related to the global COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the ways that parents and children maintain family routines, health, and wellbeing. Companion animals (pets) can be a critical source of comfort during traumatic experiences, although changes to family routines, such as those caused by COVID-19, can also bring about challenges like managing undesirable pet behaviours or pet-human interactions. We aimed to examine the relationship between pet attachment and mental health for both parents and their children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. A total of 1,034 parents living with a child under 18 years and a cat or dog completed an online cross-sectional survey between July and October 2020. Path analysis using multivariate linear regression was conducted to examine associations between objective COVID-19 impacts, subjective worry about COVID-19, human-pet attachment, and mental health. After adjusting for core demographic factors, stronger pet-child attachment was associated with greater child anxiety (parent-reported, p < .001). Parent-pet attachment was not associated with self-reported psychological distress (p = .42), however, parents who reported a strong emotional closeness with their pet reported greater psychological distress (p = .002). Findings highlight the role of pets during times of change and uncertainty. It is possible that families are turning to animals as a source of comfort, during a time when traditional social supports are less accessible. Alternatively, strong pet attachment is likely to reflect high levels of empathy, which might increase vulnerability to psychological distress. Longitudinal evidence is required to delineate the mechanisms underpinning pet attachment and mental health. Public Library of Science 2022-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9312405/ /pubmed/35877660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271687 Text en © 2022 Bennetts et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Bennetts, Shannon K. Crawford, Sharinne B. Howell, Tiffani J. Burgemeister, Fiona Chamberlain, Catherine Burke, Kylie Nicholson, Jan M. Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title | Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title_full | Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title_fullStr | Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title_full_unstemmed | Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title_short | Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment |
title_sort | parent and child mental health during covid-19 in australia: the role of pet attachment |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9312405/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271687 |
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