Ohio State College of Nursing students with Brienne, the English Lab. Brienne belongs to Beth Steinberg, a senior researcher at the Center of Integrative Health and lead researcher for Buckeye Paws. Credit: Courtesy of Aimee Mitchell
It’s easy to say that therapy dogs have the power to improve one’s mood, but having evidence to support this claim can create a meaningful impact.
A study conducted by researchers at the Wexner Medical Center, along with Ohio State’s colleges of Nursing and Medicine, measured the effects therapy dogs have on stress, burnout, work engagement and mood for 64 healthcare workers. Beth Steinberg, senior researcher at the Center of Integrative Health and lead researcher for Buckeye Paws — a therapy dog program that provides support to medical center staff, faculty and students at Ohio State — said mood showed the most significant improvement out of these variables.
“I wanted to measure mood because, as we started this program, every time we take the dogs out to an event, to a unit, to see people — it happened just this morning at the schools — we see responses in person,” Steinberg said. “People smile, they laugh, they start talking, they start socializing. The dogs are a connector.”
The study included 64 staffers, 55 of whom were were split into two groups at one of four designated units: two medical intensive care units MIC 1 and MIC 2, and two medical surgery units, M-S 1 and M-S 2.
The first group included 26 participants while the second group included 29 participants. The remaining 9 staffers worked as Internal Pool nurses or provided care in multiple units, but their data was not included in the study’s analysis.
The seven therapy dogs used in the study are members of Buckeye Paws, which was founded by Steinberg as well as Mary Justice, chief administrative officer at Ohio State’s College of Nursing.
Aimee Mitchell, Buckeye Paws program manager, said the dogs’ respective handlers are medical center employees who volunteer their time outside of work.
During the study, therapy dogs and their handlers visited one of the two assigned groups three times a week for eight weeks. After the intervention period was complete, participants transitioned to the other group.
Healthcare workers were asked to rate their mood on a scale from zero to 10 — zero meaning “sad, down, depressed” and 10 meaning “happy, awesome, great” — before and after each visit. Stress, burnout and work engagement, the remaining three variables, were measured before and after the eight-week period.
Steinberg said the healthcare workers would usually report scores on the lower side, such as a five or lower, before engaging with the therapy dogs; however, after spending time with them, they would report their mood as an eight, nine or ten. In addition to the numbers, some healthcare workers would write brief notes or leave positive drawings on their mood reports.
“They added other things on [the reports], so we knew it really did make an impact just beyond the number they gave us,” Steinberg said.
Based on conversations with staff and her observations from the study, Justice said humans tend to quickly move through life and allow the world to pass them by. Dogs, however, have the ability to slow down intense moments for healthcare workers, allowing them to lower their heart rates and blood pressure.
“People will tell me it’s like a five-minute vacation, especially on the units when it’s so chaotic, and so fast-paced and they’re doing so many things all at once,” Justice said. “The dog stops them in their tracks, literally and figuratively.”
Since Buckeye Paws was created as a peer-support program for medical center and/or university employees, it fosters connections and community within Ohio State. These connections set the program apart from other campuses that use volunteers from outside their university to handle their therapy dogs, Steinberg said.
“We’ve been recognized by the American Kennel Club as being one of one in the nation,” Mitchell said.
Since data shows therapy dogs positively impact healthcare workers, empowering Buckeye Paws to help other universities and medical centers build similar programs is important, Justice said.
Buckeye Paws has already helped Parkview Health in Fort Wayne, Indiana launch its own therapy dog program called Parkview Pups, Mitchell said.
“Anytime you do research and measure outcomes, you have a responsibility — an academic responsibility — to disseminate those results and get them out there so people can understand if this is a good or bad thing,” Steinberg said.
This story was updated Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 1:42 p.m. to include a more accurate description of how participants of the study were divided into groups.
