Director Bassett Medical Center Bassett Healthcare Cooperstown, New York, United States
Background: In our prior cross-sectional study of 643 children recruited in a primary care clinic, we found that children, ages 4-11 years, with pet dogs had lower anxiety scores (for separation and social anxiety) than children without pet dogs. Pet dogs may ameliorate childhood anxiety through emotional support and attachment. However it is not known whether pet dog exposure during childhood prevents the evolution of subthreshold mental health (MH) problems into full-fledged MH disorders in adolescence.
Objective: Determine whether exposure to pet dogs in childhood is inversely related to the prevalence of teen MH disorders.
Design/Methods: In a retrospective cohort study design, we combined our prior study database with electronic medical record (EMR) data to create a patient-level analytic database that included common MH diagnoses (anxiety, depression, ADHD) occurring from the time of enrollment in the prior study through the subsequent 8 year follow up period. ICD-9 codes before 10/1/15, and ICD-10 codes thereafter, were used to identify MH cases. We used survival analysis to measure time to common MH diagnoses, anxiety disorder and MH diagnosis associated with a psychotropic prescription. Given that the benefits of pet ownership have been explained by confounding factors in other studies, survival analysis was adjusted for age, sex, baseline SCARED5 score and zip code poverty level.
Results: Survival analysis of time to any MH diagnosis based on the presence of a pet dog at baseline included 571 teens (mean age at followup 14 years, range 11-19), 53% were male, (p=.76), 56% had a pet dog at baseline (p =0.09). MH diagnosis associated with visits made during the follow-up period included anxiety (n = 85, 51.5 %), ADHD (n = 61, 37%), depression (n= 15, 9.1%) and combined MH diagnoses (n = 4, 2.4%). Survival analysis for time to anxiety required excluding subjects who had other MH diagnosis during the follow-up period so this analysis included 495 teens. Having a pet dog at baseline was protective against time to anxiety diagnosis (HR = 0.657, p=.0483, 95% CI 0.433-0.997) and had a near significant protective effect against any MH diagnosis (HR = 0.745, p=.065, 95% CI 0.545-1.018), but not for MH diagnosis associated with a psychotropic prescription (HR= 0.863, p=.477, 95% CI 0.576-1.249). Conclusion(s): Exposure to pet dogs in childhood may be inversely related to the prevalence of teen mental health (MH) disorders. Next we will repeat the survival analysis using estimated exposure time to pet dogs or cats during the 8 year follow-up period.
Authors/Institutions: Anne M. Gadomski, Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown, New York, United States; Melissa Scribani, Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown, New York, United States; Nicole Krupa, Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown, New York, United States; Paul Jenkins, Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown, New York, United States; Lawrence S. Wissow, Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, United States
