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submitted 1 year ago by ragica@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.ml
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[-] Nepenthe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

• Sample size of 170, which even the researchers admitted was low

• First study done during the lockdowns, which they posited may have had a negative affect as people tried to cope with financial stress, sudden social isolation, and caring for a pet without ever leaving the house. It did, they found.

• Second study taken post-lockdown, unable to compare depression and anxiety as they did not bother measuring those the first time (why not?)

• Trained animals do provide a benefit, actually; friendly obedience and a relaxed personality found in support animals suggested to be a factor but they never measured that either I guess.

• 95% report greater life consistency and a sense of love, so maybe pets are helpful for someone in vital need of emotional support, we don't know.

Overall, I think if they tried really, really hard, and I mean really put their minds to it, they could write a worse headline for such an ambiguous and unhelpful article.

[-] addie@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

I'd consider a sample size of 170 to be pretty large, if the sample was drawn with perfect randomness from the population. But this one wasn't, it was self-selected. Also wasn't a clinical trial, and while they seem to know what they're doing with setting up the questionnaire, I would assume it would result in larger measurement error, which would need more samples to be able to correct for.

Completely agree with you though - the conclusions that it seems reasonable to draw from this are 'not much, really'. Seems to disagree with the results of a larger study by many of the same authors, too, which say that companion animals did result in a smaller decline in mental health during lockdown.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239397

this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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