Written by Joyce Smith, BS. This study explores the health benefits of employing animal visitation programs to reduce college student stress, anxiety and depression and concludes that human animal interactions reduce stress as shown by a significant reduction in the salivary cortisol levels of study participants.
Salivary cortisol is a marker of one of the body’s most sensitive stress systems, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. College level stress, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation 1,2 are often reflected in lower GPA’s, and greater dropouts 3. A current study by Gee et al 4 hypothesized that animal interaction in academic environments may enhance social-emotional development and improve learning motivation and coping skills for handling common measures of stress as well as promote better social interaction with peers. The authors specifically recommended a more comprehensive and aggressive platform to promote human-animal interaction (HAI) interventions in educational settings, particularly college-based animal visitation programs (AVPs). Thus, Pendry et al responded to their recommendation with this present study 5 which examines the extent to which participation in a college-based AVP might affect the ability of college students to cope with academic stress. Their objective was to examine the effectiveness of an existing universal AVP to temporarily decrease the salivary cortisol levels of college students by providing an opportunity for them to physically interact in supervised group settings with shelter dogs and cats brought to campus by the humane society.
The study was conducted at Washington State University over the course of three semesters. Recruitment transpired the week before final exams and a few days before program implementation and coincided with the announcement of the AVP program date. To investigate the effectiveness of an AVP on salivary cortisol levels, 249 college students were allocated into four groups: Group one (n=73) were allowed hands-on AVP for 10 minutes of interacting with cats and dogs (petting, playing or just hanging out). Group two (n=62) involved 10 minutes of watching other students pet animals (AVOP) while they waited in line for their turn; Group three (n=57) watched a slide show of still images of the same animals for 10 minutes while Group four (the waitlisted group also of 57 students) waited quietly without cell phones, reading material or other stimuli for their 10-minute turn. Salivary cortisol was collected at 15 and 25 minutes following each student’s AVP completion and in the morning upon wakening.
Results demonstrated that students in the hands-on intervention (petting cats and dogs) had significantly lower post-test cortisol levels compared to groups 2, 3, and 4, thus validating a significant stress-relieving physiological reaction to petting cats and dogs for 10 minutes.
Interacting with and petting cats and dogs significantly reduced stress by reducing levels of the stress hormone cortisol present in the salivas of the 73 “group one” students. In addition to generally boosting students’ moods, petting animals during AVPs is necessary for stress reduction. Socialization with one’s peers or simple viewing the animals may not suffice. Since a 10-minute college-based AVP providing hands-on petting of cats and dogs provided momentary stress relief, the authors will follow up with a cortisol-level assessment over a four-week period, hoping that this longer association might relieve the stress among college students to a greater extent.
Source: Pendry, Patricia, and Jaymie L. Vandagriff. “Animal Visitation Program (AVP) Reduces Cortisol Levels of University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” AERA Open 5, no. 2 (2019): 2332858419852592.
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Posted August 12, 2019.
Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.
References:
- Bayram N, Bilgel N. The prevalence and socio-demographic correlations of depression, anxiety and stress among a group of university students. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. 2008;43(8):667-672.
- Keyes CL, Eisenberg D, Perry GS, Dube SR, Kroenke K, Dhingra SS. The relationship of level of positive mental health with current mental disorders in predicting suicidal behavior and academic impairment in college students. Journal of American College Health. 2012;60(2):126-133.
- Eisenberg D, Golberstein E, Hunt JB. Mental health and academic success in college. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy. 2009;9(1).
- Gee NR, Griffin JA, McCardle P. Human–animal interaction research in school settings: current knowledge and future directions. Aera Open. 2017.
- Pendry P, Vandagriff JL. Animal Visitation Program (AVP) Reduces Cortisol Levels of University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial. AERA Open. 2019;5(2):2332858419852592.
