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519 - PET@home: Research protocol for a toolkit to improve care for non-residential long term care clients owning pets
- Ruslan Leontjevas, Marie-José Enders-Slegers, Peter Reniers, Ine Declerq, Debby Gerritsen, Karin Hediger
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- Journal:
- International Psychogeriatrics / Volume 33 / Issue S1 / October 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 November 2021, p. 68
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- Article
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Background
Over half of the households in The Netherlands have one or more pets. In elderly people, owning a pet is associated with a better quality of life and less loneliness, anxiety, depression and agitation. Many non-residential long term care (LTC) clients rely on support of others to take care of their pets. However, that may place a significant burden on the social support network of the LTC client. Issues relevant to keeping pets are not explicitly incorporated in the Dutch Long-term Care Act. Many LTC organizations have no instruments for care workers, clients and their family (1) to consolidate the positive role of pets for clients’ quality of life and (2) to address whether it is possible to keep the pets and to organize care accordingly.
Research ObjectivesTo help care workers, clients and their family to gain insight into the role of the pets in the clients’ life and their social support network; to develop practical instruments that help making decisions about owning and caring for pets.
MethodPLAN: In months 0-16, a narrative systematic review will be conducted (STUDY 1.1) on the meaning of pets for elderly people in general. A qualitative STUDY 1.2 with LTC clients, their informal carers and care professionals will validate and further explore the topic. STUDY 1.3 and 1.4 develop and (cognitively) validate work cards for interviews of clients and relatives by care providers. In months 17-29, an Experience based co-design method (STUDIES 2.1-2.3) will be used to develop the PET@home toolkit. The method includes (1) discovery interviews (10 clients and their family), (2) focus groups with healthcare providers (N = 2x6); (3) focus groups with 6-8 clients and informal and professional carers. In STUDY 3.1, potential users will pre-test the Toolkit. In months 30-34, a process evaluation (STUDY 3.2) is performed in 10-15 clients. A dissemination and an implementation plan will be developed.
ConclusionsThe project will result in an innovative PET@home toolkit that will help to assess the pets role in the clients’ quality of life and support network, and will help making decisions about owning and caring for pets.
13 - The meaning of companion animals: qualitative analysis of the life histories of elderly cat and dog owners
- from Part III - Pets, families and interactions
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- By Marie-José Enders-Slegers, University of Utrecht
- Edited by Anthony L. Podberscek, University of Cambridge, Elizabeth S. Paul, University of Bristol, James A. Serpell, University of Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Companion Animals and Us
- Print publication:
- 13 April 2000, pp 237-256
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
The human–animal bond has a long history. The first evidence of a probable domestic dog was found in a Palaeolithic grave at Oberkassel in Germany, dated at 14 000 years BP (before present). The first evidence of a special bond between humans and animals was found at the site of Ein Mallaha (Israel), where a grave from 12000 years BP was found. In it, a human was buried together with a puppy (Clutton-Brock, 1995). From cave paintings, ancient pictures, statues, excavations and literature, we know that animals played diverse and important roles in the lives of our ancestors. They played various religious roles, were ‘used’ as hunters, guardians, or were just companions.
Today, the roles that domestic animals such as cats and dogs play are just as diverse and depend on the cultural contexts in which they find themselves. In the West they are considered as companion and ‘working’ animals (e.g. dogs assisting people with disabilities, guarding flocks of sheep, protecting homes from burglary, assisting police and customs officers). In some other cultures, dogs are considered as food, as ‘impure’ or as ‘outcasts’ (Serpell, 1995).
THE PET AS LOVE OBJECT, FRIEND, ATTACHMENT FIGURE, NETWORK MEMBER
In the last three decades, researchers from different disciplines have focused on the human–animal bond, accentuating interactions and attitudes of humans towards pets, or emphasizing the consequences of this relationship for the physical and/or the mental well-being of the owners. For example, Levinson (1969) argued from within a psycho-analytic framework that pets satisfy vital emotional needs among the elderly by providing a love object. Pets can serve as primitive defence mechanisms, as ‘objects of identification’, and as ‘counterbalances’ in situations in which the elderly suffer from the loss of relatives, friends and associates; where they become physically dependent on others; and in the process of accepting oneself as an elderly person. Furthermore, Levinson (1969) stated that pets could pave the way to new friendships and may give the elderly a reason for living. Rynearson (1978) observed that the bond between humans and pets is based on their communality as animals and their mutual need for attachment. He focused on ‘pathological attachment relationships’ in which relationships between humans and pets served a defensive purpose and disruption of the bond could create enduring psychiatric problems:
Under normal circumstances they share complementary attachment because of mutual need and response.