The Impact of Pet Ownership on Cardiovascular Health

Topic: Dog ownership and cardiovascular health/disease for adults in the U.S. 1. Determine the plan’s background introduction. Include the following details:  The title of the plan  Summary of three relevant empirical and scholarly research studies for the plan. Each summary should be about 150 to 250 words. The title of this research plan is: "The Correlation Between Dog Ownership and Cardiovascular Health and Disease for Adults in the U.S.". Pet ownership is suggested to be a common factor associated with better cardiovascular health. There is a lower risk of cardiovascular disease within the U.S. population of people who own pets, particularly dogs. Pet owners have experienced a lower prevalence of SH, but no heart failure, coronary artery disease, DM or stroke compared to those who do not own pets. Demographic factors that were considered during this study were age, gender, race, marital status, education, co-morbidities, cigarette smoking, family income, hours worked, hours slept, depression and lipid profiles between patients who owned pets and did not own pets. The study had 42,038 participants – of those participants 10,905 (31%) were asked about owning a pet. The study showed that pet owners were likely to be older, married, less likely to be women, more educated, tobacco users and worked 35+ hours a week than non-pet owners (all p values <0.05). Physical activity (dog walking) may be a variable when it comes to the health of dog owners. Pet owners do not have a lower risk of stroke; however, the incidence of a stroke was very low (<2%) within the population of participants. Owning a pet seems to be a positive experience with the benefit of increasing one’s health. This study had several limitations; there were selection biases due to cross-sectional design of the survey. Owning a pet is not randomized, therefore leading to a possible incorrect prediction. 1 There is evidence that dog owners are more active and have lower blood pressure, plasma cholesterol and triglycerides, weakened responses to lab induced mental stress as well as improved survival rates after a myocardial infarction. One year survival data was gathered from 369 patients, 112 of which were pet owners and 20 who died. Dog owners appeared to be less likely to die within 1 year than people who did not own dogs. Pet owners appeared to report fewer doctors’ visits than people who did not own pets. These data appear to be restricted to dogs, as owners of cats seemed to have a significant increase in death risk compared to dog owners. However, improved mood and emotional state were shown linked to decreased central and regional autonomic activity, lowering blood pressure and reducing cardiac arrythmias in both dog and cat owners. Psychosocial benefits of pet ownership include companionship, improved mood, emotional state and decreased mental stress helping to improve not only mental and physical health but improving day to day life. During this study, 3,964 adults aged >50 who did not have any major physical illnesses were surveyed; the participants must not have any medical illnesses such as arthritis, lupus, cancer or diabetes, must have listed a family income and must not heavily smoke or consume a large amount of alcohol. Results showed that dogs were the most popular pets owned out of the 34.6% of pet owners leading by 22%. Owning a pet showed lower rates of cardiovascular disease related deaths and stroke among women. Of cat owners, the hazard ratio of all cardiovascular disease related deaths was 0.62 and the hazard ratio of risk from dying from a stroke was 0.22 compared with those who did not own cats. The conclusion was that owning a cat significantly lowered one’s risk of dying from a cardiovascular event, but in particular, a stroke; this is possibly due to the stressrelief one receives with an animal companion. 2. Develop a clear and specific research question that is relevant to the three research studies you chose. Your response should be about 25 words. 2 How do the physical and emotional stress levels between dog owners and cat owners compare in terms of benefitÝng one both mentally and physically? 3. Develop a clear, specific, and testable hypothesis that corresponds to your research question. Your response should be about 25 words. Consider the following in your hypothesis:  Your hypothesis should be informed by the claim you are making. Cat owners will have a significant decrease in mental stress compared to dog owners due to the effects purring has on a person. Dog owners will have a significant decrease in physical stress compared to cat owners due to physical activity. 4. Describe aspects of sampling that you would want to consider while acquiring participants for your study. Your response should be about 100 words. Participants will include adults ages 40 and older, as to ensure they are all at their peak mental maturity. The criteria for the study would include that participants must be in good health having no chronic physical or mental illnesses, must work a full-time job, must not being enduring any current trauma and must own either a cat or a dog or both. Participants will be divided into four groups of 1,250 people: one group being cat owners, another group being dog owners, the third group owning both a cat and a dog and lastly a group of non-pet owners. Considerations will be made before giving the survey and taking laboratory measurements in order to ensure the groups have enough participants to give accurate results. 5. Select a design (experimental or correlational) for your proposed study that aligns with the research question and hypothesis. Your response should be about 100 words. Include the following details:  Explain why you selected this design.  Identify conceptual variables that align with the research question and hypothesis. The design for this study is observational (Morling, 20202). The reason for this study being done under an observational design is that all participants from each of the four groups will undergo laboratory tests, which will be analyzed, and determining data will be created from the results. Since this study is observing the results of laboratory tests on those of pet owners and non-pet owners and recording their findings based on them, I have chosen the observational design. 3 6. Select a measure to operationally define each of your conceptual variables. Your response should be about 100 words per variable. Include the following details:  As you select a measure, also state whether it uses natural/laboratory observations, surveys, objective/physiological measures, interviews, etc.  For each variable you measure, identify its scale of measurement. The following measures have been selected for this study to define the conceptual variables: Non-pet owners, cat owners, dog owners and those who own both a cat and a dog. All participants will be sent prior to the survey to a laboratory to have blood drawn for the following tests: Complete Blood Count, Basic Metabolic panel, and a Cortisol test. Participants will then be given a self-report survey to rate on a scale from 1=Totally Disagree to 5=Totally Agree about their stress levels and daily habits. All participants will see a talk therapist once every week for three months. After three months of talk therapy, the blood tests listed above will be drawn again and the self-report survey will be given once more to see how stress levels have changed over the past three months. 7. Describe your type of analysis and the p value required to support your hypothesis. Your response should be about 50 words. Cat owners will have a significant decrease in mental stress compared to dog owners due to the effects purring has on a person. Dog owners will have a significant decrease in physical stress compared to cat owners due to physical activity. The analysis that will be used in the hypothesis will be a chi-squared test since I will be comparing experimentally obtained results (M., D., Unknown). The p value would be less than or equal to 0.05, giving future randomized studies of this type less of the ability to be significantly similar. 8. Develop the plan’s discussion content. Your response should be about 250 to 350 words. Include the following details:  What you would expect to be the main finding of your study  How you would know if your hypothesis was supported  The potential implications of the findings  A possible limitation of your proposed study  Directions for future research I believe the main findings from the results of this study will be that cat owners alone will have a better mental wellness and less mental stress than those of whom have no pets, 4 a dog or both a cat and a dog. This is a part of my hypothesis because cat’s purrs trigger healing. I believe that both dog owners and those who own both a cat and a dog will be in better physical health and have less physical stress due to being more engaged physically, e.g. dog walking, playing fetch, etc. I know that my hypothesis was supported because there were several factors which gave us the results we came to. Laboratory tests, a self-report survey and three months of talk therapy all gave us unique results which statistically supported the hypothesis. The potential implications of the findings are that: Having a pet lowers one’s stress levels, both mentally and physically. This is shown specifically by the cortisol levels in the blood, answers to the self-report survey and the three months of talk therapy. Owning a dog increases one’s physical health and lowers one’s likelihood of certain health risks. This is shown specifically by all blood tests drawn. Owning both a cat and a dog may lower both mental and physical stress levels. This is shown specifically by cortisol levels in the blood, answers to the self-report survey and the three months of talk therapy. A possible limitation of my proposed study may be that the study does not consider the possibility of developing an undiagnosed mental illness, particularly anxiety or depression, prior or during the study. A future study that could be done is mental and physical stress levels before the adoption of a pet (dog or cat) versus after the adoption of a pet (dog or cat) determining whether the addition of a new pet increases or decreases the stress of a person. 5