Featured Partner
Principal Investigators
Rationale
The deliberate inclusion of dogs into human health and wellbeing interventions is currently a burgeoning field in health and educational settings. Universities globally are introducing programs where students interact with dogs to improve wellbeing. The rates of depression and anxiety are on the rise worldwide, with university students experiencing even higher levels of mental distress. Despite the increasing popularity of such programs and indications that they help students reduce stress, the mechanisms through which these interactions may confer health benefits to humans are still poorly understood. Previous psychological research indicates that interacting with a therapy dog produces immediate reductions in anxiety and distress in university students. However, further psychophysiological research is needed, particularly electroencephalography (EEG) to better understand central nervous system (CNS) effects of human-dog interactions.
Objective
This study will combine subjective self-report measures with objective physiological measurements including heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and EEG to record the changes that occur during interactions with a therapy dog. Researchers will also examine how psychological symptoms, attitudes towards dogs, resilience, and personality characteristics are associated with changes in HR, HRV and EEG.
Hypothesis
Interactions with therapy dogs will provide greater psychological and physiological measures of relaxation (i.e. increase in HRV, and increase in delta, theta, alpha, and beta EEG activity) compared to standard relaxation induction.
Design
This study will adopt a repeated measures design and examine psychophysiological outcomes from 100 university students.
Expected Results
The study will provide a more complete understanding of the psychophysiological changes in humans and related health benefits derived from human-dog interactions.
