NCT02363608

Animal Assisted Activity Program on Patients and Staff on an Inpatient Surgical Oncology Unit

Caring Canines: Outcomes From an Animal Assisted Activity Program on Patients and Staff on an Inpatient Surgical Oncology Unit

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 146 (actual)
• Sponsor: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to describe the effects of canine-assisted activity visits on patients and staff in a hospital setting. The Caring Canines program uses dogs who have been trained to be obedient, calm and comforting. It involves a visit by a volunteer (called the dog's handler) and the volunteer's dog that has been trained and tested to have a good personality and to follow commands. A visit typically lasts about 10-15 minutes with the patient interacting with the dog while the dog is supervised by the handler. Memorial Sloan Kettering currently has Caring Canine dogs visit patients but the investigators don't yet know the impact of these visits on patients and staff. The investigators would like to see how the Caring Canine visits impact a patients' mood, including anxiety, stress, and sense of well-being. Two groups of patients will take part in this study - the first group will receive standard post surgery care and will not receive a visit from the Caring Canines program and the second group will receive daily visits (Tuesday -Friday) from the Caring Canines program while they are on M15. The purpose of this study is to look at differences in well-being between patients who have the visits with the dogs and patients who do not.

Conditions

• Postoperative Care

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	standard post surgery care
BEHAVIORAL	Caring Canine program	The therapy dogs who visit at MSKCC. A visit by a therapy dog typically lasts about 10-15 minutes with the patient interacting with the therapy dog while the dog is supervised by the handler.
BEHAVIORAL	baseline and post assessment	The baseline and post assessment will include the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL R-IV) (Stamm, 1997-2005) and qualitative questions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-01-01
• Primary completion: 2017-01-01
• First posted: 2015-02-16
• Last updated: 2017-01-13

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States