Author(s): Robert McCullagh, Tasha Seppie, Morgan Aamodt, Bailey Baird, Emily Covarrubias, Daphne Jensen, Ayleen Lara, Lee Sego, Sebastian Trias, Christian Tueller, Gerolyn Ryan
Mentor(s): Kent Hinkson, Malisa Brooks, Ryan Roberts
Institution UVU
Roughly 13 million Americans in 2020 suffered with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2023). PTSD has a negative impact on quality of life (Schnurr et al., 2009). First-line treatment(s) for resolving PTSD are Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE; 70%; Steenkamp et al., 2020), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; 82%; Asmundson et al., 2018), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR; 51%; Steenkamp et al., 2020; VA, 2017). While effective at reducing distress, up to 50% of veterans fail to complete treatment (Shayani et al., 2023), which highlights a need for alternative treatments. An increasingly popular intervention is the use of psychiatric service dogs (PSD). Among Veterans with PTSD, owning a PSD is correlated with increases in social engagement (Galsgaard & Eskelund, 2020; Woodward et al., 2022), emotional regulation (Abraham et al., 2022), and reductions in isolation (McLaughlin & Hamilton, 2019). PSDs have been shown to provide an emotional benefit and be effective at reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety (Leighton et al., 2024). This study examined if participating in a program where you train your own PSD reduced the severity of PTSD symptoms in Veterans. Veterans participating in the program cared for/trained their own PSDs by attending a weekly training session with a trainer, completing homework training their dogs in public parks and spaces on a daily basis. Several variables of interest were examined for a relationship with the outcome measure (PTSD levels determined by the Posttraumatic Checklist 5 or PCL-5) including Veteran’s gender, whether or not the Veteran was training their own pet or had received a new dog to adopt for the study, program homework completion, current participation in traditional talk therapy, and utilizing psychotropic medication(s). Only homework completion was found to be statistically significant, with changes in PCL scores pre- (M=17.96, SD=3.56) and post-intervention (M=12.00, SD=2.11) being observed for those who reported that they completed their homework at least 80% of the time when compared to those who did not, r (32) = -.656, p < .001. These findings suggest, contrary to much of the existing literature’s mechanistic proposals, that changes in PTSD in those with service animals may have nothing to do with the dog, but rather in behavioral activation aimed at reducing social and physical isolation. The results of this study add to the growing literature surrounding the efficacy of service dogs in treating mental health disorders.