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 As these waiting lists continue to grow, a
scientist at Purdue University continues to lead first-of-its-kind
research revealing how exactly these dogs are helping veterans and
the people around them – providing quantifiable data as they wait
for a dog of their own.
Maggie O’Haire, an associate professor of human-animal interaction
in the Purdue College of Veterinary Medicine, is revealing how
service dogs can offer both physiological and behavioral benefits to
veterans with PTSD.
“We continue to hear that service dogs are saving veterans’ lives,”
O’Haire said. “Our research is intended to measure this. We see that
the dogs are helping, but now the challenge is answering how exactly
service dogs are helping and what to expect once you have one of
them in your household. Service dogs for PTSD are not a cure, but
for some veterans they can offer benefits that make PTSD symptoms
easier to manage.”
O’Haire led a preliminary study that took place in 2015-16, which
showed that overall symptoms of PTSD were lower among war veterans
with service dogs. The study examined 141 veterans — with 76 of them
having a service dog and 65 being on a waiting list for a dog.
O’Haire led that study with the help of K9s For Warriors, a
nonprofit organization that provides veterans with service dogs.
O’Haire’s work provided scientific evidence of mental health
benefits experienced by veterans with PTSD who have service dogs.
The findings during that study also went beyond behavioral benefits
and assessed cortisol levels because it is a biomarker in the stress
response system, O’Haire says. For veterans with service dogs, their
cortisol levels grew higher in the morning than those who were on
the waiting list. Healthy adults without PTSD typically have rising
cortisol levels in the morning as part of their response to waking
up. O’Haire’s research has revealed that for veterans, having a
service dog was also associated with less anger, less anxiety and
better sleep.
O’Haire has continued to lead and publish additional research based
on two further studies, including data collected from a large-scale
clinical trial funded by National Institutes of Health, Merrick Pet
Care, and the Petco Foundation that recently concluded after three
years. The clinical trial consisted of studying veterans with and
without service dogs over an extended period of time.
Here are some of O’Haire’s recent findings that address the
different topics of a service dog’s most important tasks, how
couples are affected, and replication of her initial data.
Most important tasks
In preparation for the clinical trial, O’Haire co-led a study that
showed what trained tasks service dogs perform the most often and
which ones are most helpful to veterans with post-traumatic stress
disorder. The study found that the task of disrupting episodes of
anxiety ranked among the most important and most often used. Support
for the work was provided by Merrick Pet Care.
Military couples
O’Haire’s most recent work includes a study that shows for the first
time how couples are affected by a veteran’s PTSD service dog. The
study, published in Military Behavioral Health and led by O’Haire
and graduate student Christine McCall, showed that service dogs may
improve resilience and relationship satisfaction among some couples.
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The study also showed that service dogs may present
challenges such as unwanted public attention, financial costs and
lack of public awareness. Support for the work included Newman’s Own
Foundation and Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
“We want to help families and spouses know what to expect from
having a service dog in the household,” O’Haire said. “There are
benefits and there are drawbacks. The reality is that this is a
real, living creature that can create both beautiful and challenging
moments for everyone in the home.”
Replication of initial service dog study
Another recently published study that O’Haire led with graduate
student Clare Jensen is a successful replication of O’Haire’s
preliminary study – and also includes the largest sample size of
veterans and service dogs to date. The work was published in the
Journal of Traumatic Stress and was supported by Merrick Pet Care,
Newman’s Own Foundation and Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
“There is a replication crisis in the field of psychology, where
studies that identify a promising finding that happens only once,
and then when researchers try to get the same results a second time,
there are no significant outcomes,” O’Haire said. “This study is
exciting and novel because we were able to successfully replicate
our initial work demonstrating that service dogs are related to
reduced PTSD symptomology.”
O’Haire and her research team will continue to analyze and learn
from the data collected from the recently concluded clinical trial,
which includes studying how veterans are partnering with their dogs
and what trained tasks continue to be the most important.
“Our goal is to advance rigorous science instead of relying on
intuition when it comes to how service dogs are helping veterans,”
O’Haire said.
O’Haire also said the scope of her work goes beyond just informing
veterans themselves.
“Clinicians need to know when to recommend a service dog and who to
recommend them to,” O’Haire said. “It’s hard when a patient says, ‘I
need a service dog,’ but there’s no science to back it up. The same
goes for the community. We want these findings to help people
understand what service dogs do. And most importantly, we want to
break down the stigma that just because someone has an invisible
disability doesn’t mean that a service dog isn’t helping them.”
About Purdue University
Purdue University is a top public research institution developing
practical solutions to today’s toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 5
Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World
Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and
out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online,
real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to
all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen
tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than
ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the
persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at https://purdue.edu/.
[Writers Abbey Nickel & Amy Patterson
Neubert
Source: Maggie O’Haire] |
