Service dogs reduce PTSD severity among veterans

Key takeaways:

• Veterans with service dogs had lower self-reported and clinician-assessed PTSD symptom severity.
• Service dogs were also linked to greater quality of life and social health.

Veterans who were paired with service dogs demonstrated lower PTSD symptom severity, anxiety and depression, a study published in JAMA Network Open showed.

According to Marguerite E. O’Haire, PhD, a professor at the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine, veterans with PTSD face high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide.

“Veterans with PTSD are increasingly turning to service dogs — trained in specific tasks — for help,” she told Healio. “We hear many anecdotal and heartwarming stories about the benefits of service dogs, yet scientific evidence is limited.”

Although service dogs are in high demand, O’Haire explained that funding is limited because of a lack of data. Providing more evidence on how service dogs help patients could address this issue, she added.

In the nonrandomized clinical trial, O’Haire and colleagues assigned veteran service members (mean age, 37 years; 75% men) to either an intervention group that received psychiatric service dogs (n = 81) or to a control group that was waitlisted (n = 75). Both groups had access to usual care.

PTSD symptom severity was measured with the self-reported PTSD checklist from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), while PTSD diagnosis was measured with the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5). Both tools had a score of 0 to 80, with higher scores indicating greater symptom severity.

At the 3-month follow-up visit, the intervention group had significantly lower mean PTSD symptom severity scores based on the DSM-5 (41.9 vs. 51.7) and CAPS-5 (30.2 vs. 36.9) compared with the control group. The intervention group also had lower depression (OR = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.23-0.86) and anxiety (OR = 0.25; 95% CI, 0.13-0.5) scores.

O’Haire and colleagues additionally noted that the intervention group had greater social health and quality of life, as indicated by several measures, including:

• less social isolation (OR = 0.34; 95% CI, 0.18-0.64);
• greater life satisfaction (OR = 3.73; 95% CI, 1.88-7.4)
• less anger (OR = 0.39; 95% CI, 0.2-0.75);
• better mental health (OR = 3.84; 95% CI, 2-7.38); and
• greater resilience (OR = 2.33; 95% CI, 1.22-4.47).

“These findings are particularly notable given the short time frame. Service dog partnerships can last a decade, but we’re already seeing significant change after just 3 months of partnership,” O’Haire said. “Our current research follows veterans over a longer period of time, and it will be exciting to see how these outcomes continue to evolve.”

O’Haire and colleagues pointed out that the intervention group had lower social activity (OR = 0.24; 95% CI, 0.12-0.48) vs. the control group, which could be due to adverse events like stigma of being accompanied by a service dog.

The study had some limitations. The service dogs were trained at only one organization, so adherence and dropout rates could vary among other organizations, according to O’Haire and colleagues. Also, some of the outcomes may have been limited because of self-reporting biases.

O’Haire and colleagues are halfway through a gold-standard, NIH-funded randomized clinical trial to confirm their findings, and they plan to further evaluate the use of service dog partnerships combined with other evidence-based PTSD interventions through a U.S. Department of Defense-funded randomized clinical trial.

“Ultimately, the future of our research is to move beyond the binary of whether or not service dog partnerships work to understand for whom and under what circumstances service dog partnerships are most effective,” O’Haire said.

For more information:

Marguerite E. O’Haire, PhD, can be reached at maggieohaire@arizona.edu.

References:

• First NIH-funded clinical trial on service dog effectiveness for PTSD finds significant benefits for veterans suffering from invisible wounds of war. https://k9sforwarriors.org/press_release/first-nih-funded-clinical-trial-on-service-dog-effectiveness-for-ptsd-finds-significant-benefits-for-veterans-suffering-from-invisible-wounds-of-war/. Published June 4, 2024. Accessed June 4, 2024.
• Leighton S, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.14686.
• Veterans with service dogs have fewer PTSD symptoms, higher quality of life. https://news.arizona.edu/news/veterans-service-dogs-have-fewer-ptsd-symptoms-higher-quality-life. Published June 4, 2024. Accessed June 4, 2024.