| review of the literature indicates that researchers, veterinarians, clergy, and counselors (psychologists and psychiatrists) in general need to have a much better understanding of human/animal interactions and human/animal bonding, and specifically, how that bond affects humans when a pet is sick or dying, The purposes of this study were to (1) determine factors related to depression among subjects after they experienced pet loss, and (2) assess whether subjects who took their pets to a specialized veterinary teaching hospital reported higher levels of depression than subjects who visited a local veterinary hospital. Subjects were selected from those veterinary clients who had experienced pet loss during the one-year time frame of September 15, 1992 through September 14, 1993. In this study, 500 pet owners who had experienced pet loss were surveyed to elicit responses on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and a Pet Loss Questionnaire (PLQ). Two research sites were chosen for the study: the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine (NCSU), and Battleground Veterinary Hospital (BVH), a local veterinary hospital with four veterinarians on staff. ANCOVA procedures revealed no differences between sites in reported depression of subjects when depression was measured using the BDI, however, when depression was measured using several variables from the PLQ, subjects from NCSU reported more symptoms. Multiple regression procedures revealed that as a group, the independent variables were highly significant,... |
