1.
Phillipou, A., Tan, E.J., Toh, W.L., Van Rheenen, T.E., Meyer, D., Neill, E., Sumner, P.J. and Rossell, S.L., 2021. Pet ownership and mental health during COVID‐19 lockdown. Australian veterinary journal, 99(10), pp.423-426.
the epidemic not only affected humans and animals, but also caused a negative psychological impact on adults and children (Odriozola-González et al., 2020; Rothe et al., 2021; Saddik et al., 2021). In the past Research has shown that pets have a positive impact on people’s psychology, helping people achieve family resilience during times of stress. This article made me curious about the impact pets can have on people’s mental health.
The first thing to do is to determine the positive effects of pets on people’s mental health. I refer to Cusack’s book Pets and mental health. I will explain it later. Secondly, in times of crisis, the relationship between people and pets has the potential to be magnified – whether positive Still negative. For example, the effects of unemployment and resource scarcity during a pandemic may intersect significantly with pet ownership. The perception that companion animals may reduce loneliness may be driving the increase in pets, with some preliminary data suggesting that adoption rates have increased during the pandemic (Morgan et al. 2020). However, pet abandonment may be linked to pandemic-related economic stress, suggesting the need to explore pet ownership shifts in the context of mental health.
This article is based on the fact that I am raising pets myself, and it is my research on the relationship between the proportion of adopted pets and the proportion of abandoned pets and people’s mental health during the epidemic.
Pet ownership was defined as owning a cat and/or dog specifically. Other pets (e.g. fish, chickens) were excluded, as evidence of the mental health benefits of owning these types of pets is still equivocal, and focusing on cats and dogs provided a more homogeneous sample given the similarities in level of care and interaction with pet owners. Sample characteristics of pet (n = 138) and non-pet (n = 125) owners are presented in it. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were employed to examine whether pet ownership significantly contributed to three psychological wellbeing domains (quality of life, resilience and loneliness) above other situational factors (all binary variables other than age), such as living alone or with others (including dependent children), working from home, having lost one’s job and age. Negative mood states (depression, anxiety and stress) were also accounted for in line with evidence of their contribution to psychological wellbeing. Analyses were undertaken with SPSS V27. Cases with missing data for each regression were deleted listwise. Multicollinearity was assessed by examining variance inflation factors (VIF).
2.
Cusack, O., 2014. Pets and mental health. Routledge.
this book presents the latest research and inspiring findings about the use of pets in mental health treatment. Reviews the historical basis for the use of pets in therapy and provides many examples of the outcomes of prescribing pets to disabled, lonely, incarcerated, and institutionalised individuals. The authors provide compelling evidence for the therapeutic value of animals in making us happier, healthier and more sociable. Although the terms human-animal bond and pet-promoting therapy are relatively new in the scientific literature, the concepts they encompass have been around for centuries. BACK-COVER COPY Research shows that animals promote humour, laughter, play and a sense of importance in people. Numerous examples show surprising results of prescribing pets to disabled, lonely, incarcerated and institutionalised people. Animal lover and author Odean Cusack provides compelling evidence that animals have therapeutic value in making us happier, healthier and more sociable.
However, this book was published in the 1990s, and it lacks some timeliness for the current epidemic era, but it can also strongly prove that pets have a positive psychological healing effect on people who are also lonely and face psychological problems during the epidemic.
3.
Ho, J., Hussain, S. and Sparagano, O., 2021. Did the COVID-19 pandemic spark a public interest in pet adoption?. Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
This is a study to determine whether global interest in pet adoption increased immediately after the WHO declared a pandemic, and whether the impact was sustainable eight months later. Conducted a Google Trends search using keywords related to pet adoption. The lowest and highest relative search volume (RSV) is scored between 0 and 100, respectively. The countries that contributed the most to this dataset include Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia. From 2015 to 2020, RSV in the global pet, dog and cat adoption category peaked between April and May 2020 during the early epidemic phase of the pandemic. Compared to the same period in 2019, RSV rates for dog and cat adoptions (2020/2019) increased by up to 250%. Nonetheless, RSV in dog adoptions has been declining since July 2020, returning to the 5-year average by December 2020. In contrast, interest in cat adoption remains high. In conclusion, global interest in pet adoption surged in the early stages of the pandemic, but it was not sustainable. With the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine, there are concerns that these newly adopted pets may be abandoned when they leave home for work in the future.
This article expresses the problem of pet abandonment after the pandemic. Most of the reasons come from people’s concerns about pets carrying viruses, as well as people’s pressures in life, and separation anxiety that pets will face when pet owners return to work after the epidemic.
Article I am interested
1.Parry NMA. COVID-19 and pets: when pandemic meets panic. Forensic Sci Int. (2020) 2:100090.
2.Irian M. COVID-19, your pet and other animals: are you at risk? Medic Rev. (2020) 22:81–2. doi: 10.37757/MR2020.V22
3.Vincent, A., Mamzer, H., Ng, Z. and Farkas, K.J., 2020. People and their pets in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Society Register, 4(3), pp.111-128.