NCT03849144

The Effect of a Therapy Dog Activity on Employees' Stress, Mood, and Job Satisfaction and Commitment

• Status: Withdrawn
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 0 (actual)
• Sponsor: Virginia Commonwealth University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The goal of the current study is to determine if participating in a therapy dog activity is associated with changes in perceived stress, mood, and job satisfaction and commitment. A secondary goal is to explore a potential dose effect of multiple treatments as well as control for novelty effect.

Detailed description

This study will be conducted at Aetna Headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut. A pre-post repeated measures design will be used to compare study participant outcomes between a treatment (therapy dog activity) and comparison (low impact physical activity) condition. Outcome variables of interest are perceived stress measured by a stress visual analog scale (SVAS), mood measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), and job satisfaction and commitment measured by an investigator-developed Job Satisfaction Survey (consisting of a combination of existing validated scales). Pet ownership, attitudes toward dogs measured by the Dog Attitude Scale, and trait stress, measured by the Perceived Stress Scale, will be assessed as moderating variables.

Conditions

• Stress
• Mood
• Job Satisfaction

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Therapy dog activity	Visiting therapy dogs and their owners, evaluated and registered as therapy dog teams with Pet Partners will be spread around a large room on the Aetna campus. Employees will arrive at scheduled times to visit with the dogs for 15 minutes, talking to the dogs and owners and petting the dogs
BEHAVIORAL	Low impact exercise	The low impact exercise will consist of stretching exercises conducted by a member of Aetna's wellness team in the same room for 15 minutes.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-03-15
• Primary completion: 2019-05-10
• Completion: 2019-07-12
• First posted: 2019-02-21
• Last updated: 2024-10-15