Pet Partners for Promotion of Academic Life Skills

Summary

The current study utilized a randomized controlled trial, conducted in a real-life setting, to determine whether, how, under which conditions, and for whom, infusing various levels of human-animal interaction (HAI) in a 4-week, university-based stress prevention program provides an effective approach to prevent negative ramifications of university students stress, promote student executive functioning and learning, while safeguarding animal welfare. This study will examine effects of sole exposure to evidence-based stress prevention content, hands-on HAI with registered PET Partner teams, or combinations thereof on students' moment-to-moment well-being and longer-term functioning in socioemotional, cognitive and physiological domains.This study will also develop a comprehensive coding system and measure the dynamic nature of behavior of participants, handlers and animals during university- based animal assisted activities, as well as the HAI environment. The data and analyses will then be utilized to inform the development of a quantitative measure to capture of the quality of human animal interaction in various settings to experimentally determine causal pathways underlying program effects on humans and animals.

Conditions

• Stress Prevention
• Cortisol
• Anxiety Disorders and Symptoms
• Depression Disorders and Symptoms
• Executive Functioning
• Motivation and Learning
• Momentary Emotion
• Study Strategies
• Perceived Stress
• Animal Behavior
• Animal Stress
• Dyadic Interaction
• Alpha-amylase

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Animal Assisted Activities

Students interact with canines in small group settings under the supervision of their handlers during structured and semi-structured activities designed to strengthen physiological, emotion and behavioral regulation

BEHAVIORAL

Academic Stress Management tools

Evidence-based workshops focus on evidence-based content and activities designed to enhance academic stress management knowledge and skills, motivation and learning, adaptive sleep, and study and test-taking behavior through strengthening physiological, emotion and behavioral regulation

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Washington State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patricia Pendry, PhD · Washington State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

30 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-08-31

Primary Completion

2018-12-31

Completion

2018-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations