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Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty

Acceptance of animal research by the public depends on several characteristics of the specific experimental study. In particular, acceptance decreases as potential animal pain or distress increases. Our objective in this study was to quantify the magnitude of pain/distress that university undergradu...

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Autores principales: Sandgren, Eric P., Streiffer, Robert, Dykema, Jennifer, Assad, Nadia, Moberg, Jackson
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9359541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35939500
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272306
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author Sandgren, Eric P.
Streiffer, Robert
Dykema, Jennifer
Assad, Nadia
Moberg, Jackson
author_facet Sandgren, Eric P.
Streiffer, Robert
Dykema, Jennifer
Assad, Nadia
Moberg, Jackson
author_sort Sandgren, Eric P.
collection PubMed
description Acceptance of animal research by the public depends on several characteristics of the specific experimental study. In particular, acceptance decreases as potential animal pain or distress increases. Our objective in this study was to quantify the magnitude of pain/distress that university undergraduate students and faculty would find to be justifiable in animal research, and to see how that justifiability varied according to the purpose of the research, or the species to which the animal belonged. We also evaluate how demographic characteristics of respondents may be associated with their opinions about justifiability. To accomplish this goal, we developed and administered a survey to students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our survey employed Likert-style questions that asked them to designate the level of animal pain or distress that they felt was justifiable for each of the following six purposes—animal disease, human disease, basic research, human medicine, chemical testing, or cosmetic testing. These questions were asked about five different species of animals including monkeys, dogs/cats, pig/sheep, rats/mice, or small fish. We used the data to establish a purpose-specific pain/distress scale, a species-specific pain/distress scale, and a composite pain/distress scale that, for each respondent, averaged the extent of justifiable pain/distress across all purposes and species. For purpose, students were more likely to choose higher levels of pain for animal disease research, followed by human disease, basic research, human medicine, chemical testing, and cosmetic testing. Faculty were more likely to choose the same level of pain for the first four purposes, followed by lower levels of pain for chemical and cosmetic testing. For species, students were more likely to choose higher levels of pain for small fish and rats/mice (tied), pigs/sheep and monkeys (tied), than for dogs/cats. For faculty, order from least to most justifiable pain/distress was small fish, rats/mice, pigs/sheep, then dogs/cats and monkeys (the latter two tied). Interestingly, exploratory factor analysis of the pain/distress scales indicated that when it comes to justifying higher levels of pain and distress, respondents identified two distinct categories of purposes, chemical and cosmetic testing, for which respondents were less likely to justify higher levels of pain or distress as compared to other purposes; and two distinct categories of species, small fish and rats/mice, for which respondents were more likely to justify higher levels of pain/distress than other species. We found that the spread of acceptance of animal research was much smaller when survey questions included pain/distress compared to when only purpose or species were part of the question. Demographically, women, vegetarians/vegans, and respondents with no experience in animal research justified less animal pain/distress than their counterparts. Not surprisingly, a lower level of support for animal research in general was correlated with lower justifiability of pain/distress. Based on these findings, we discuss the role of animal pain/distress in regulatory considerations underlying decisions about whether to approve specific animal uses, and suggest ways to strengthen the ethical review and public acceptance of animal research.
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spelling pubmed-93595412022-08-10 Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty Sandgren, Eric P. Streiffer, Robert Dykema, Jennifer Assad, Nadia Moberg, Jackson PLoS One Research Article Acceptance of animal research by the public depends on several characteristics of the specific experimental study. In particular, acceptance decreases as potential animal pain or distress increases. Our objective in this study was to quantify the magnitude of pain/distress that university undergraduate students and faculty would find to be justifiable in animal research, and to see how that justifiability varied according to the purpose of the research, or the species to which the animal belonged. We also evaluate how demographic characteristics of respondents may be associated with their opinions about justifiability. To accomplish this goal, we developed and administered a survey to students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our survey employed Likert-style questions that asked them to designate the level of animal pain or distress that they felt was justifiable for each of the following six purposes—animal disease, human disease, basic research, human medicine, chemical testing, or cosmetic testing. These questions were asked about five different species of animals including monkeys, dogs/cats, pig/sheep, rats/mice, or small fish. We used the data to establish a purpose-specific pain/distress scale, a species-specific pain/distress scale, and a composite pain/distress scale that, for each respondent, averaged the extent of justifiable pain/distress across all purposes and species. For purpose, students were more likely to choose higher levels of pain for animal disease research, followed by human disease, basic research, human medicine, chemical testing, and cosmetic testing. Faculty were more likely to choose the same level of pain for the first four purposes, followed by lower levels of pain for chemical and cosmetic testing. For species, students were more likely to choose higher levels of pain for small fish and rats/mice (tied), pigs/sheep and monkeys (tied), than for dogs/cats. For faculty, order from least to most justifiable pain/distress was small fish, rats/mice, pigs/sheep, then dogs/cats and monkeys (the latter two tied). Interestingly, exploratory factor analysis of the pain/distress scales indicated that when it comes to justifying higher levels of pain and distress, respondents identified two distinct categories of purposes, chemical and cosmetic testing, for which respondents were less likely to justify higher levels of pain or distress as compared to other purposes; and two distinct categories of species, small fish and rats/mice, for which respondents were more likely to justify higher levels of pain/distress than other species. We found that the spread of acceptance of animal research was much smaller when survey questions included pain/distress compared to when only purpose or species were part of the question. Demographically, women, vegetarians/vegans, and respondents with no experience in animal research justified less animal pain/distress than their counterparts. Not surprisingly, a lower level of support for animal research in general was correlated with lower justifiability of pain/distress. Based on these findings, we discuss the role of animal pain/distress in regulatory considerations underlying decisions about whether to approve specific animal uses, and suggest ways to strengthen the ethical review and public acceptance of animal research. Public Library of Science 2022-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9359541/ /pubmed/35939500 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272306 Text en © 2022 Sandgren 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
Sandgren, Eric P.
Streiffer, Robert
Dykema, Jennifer
Assad, Nadia
Moberg, Jackson
Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title_full Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title_fullStr Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title_full_unstemmed Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title_short Influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
title_sort influence of animal pain and distress on judgments of animal research justifiability among university undergraduate students and faculty
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9359541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35939500
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272306
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