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