Loneliness In Patients: A Research Study

studies. Results showed animal visitation programs within these facilities reduced the feeling of loneliness in patients (Banks & Banks, 2012). Having contact with an animal plays a significant role in increasing mood in both children and adults with mental health issues (Beetz et al., 2012). Researchers point out that one on one interaction with an animal is more effective than assigning multiple people to one animal, all who are looking to interact. However, assigning one animal to multiple people is still much more effective than no HAI. (Beetz et al., 2012). A past study on schizophrenia patients was conducted for 10 weeks. One group received AAT, the other group did not. Patients who received AAT reported having better mood compared …show more content…
Some past research limitations include a small sample size, no control group, insignificant difference between dose levels and only comparing HAI to no HAI. Having a small sample size is a limitation because it is uncertain if the results of the study can be generalized. No control group can be a limitation because there is nothing to compare the results of the study too. Insignificant difference between dose levels, such as only having a 10 second difference between each level, is a limitation because 10 seconds is not enough time to differentiate results for each dose. Lastly, comparing only HAI to no HAI can be a limitation because it is uncertain if it was the HAI in general that had an effect or if it was the amount of time spent with the …show more content…
The measures included the Big Five Inventory, Pet Attitude Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire, Self-Rating of Happiness Scale, Stress Rating Scale, HAIS for the participant, HAIS for the researcher, and a demographic questionnaire. Big Five Inventory. The Big Five Inventory is a 44-item inventory that measures on five different dimensions of personality. These dimensions include extraversion vs. introversion, agreeableness vs. antagonism, conscientiousness vs. lack of direction, neuroticism vs. emotional stability, and openness vs. closedness to experience (John & Srivastava, 1999). Pet Attitude Scale. The pet attitude scale is a 18-item questionnaire with a 7-point response scale for each question. This scale was created by Templer to measure human-animal binding (Morovati, Steinberg, Taylor & Lee, 2008). Perceived Stress Scale. The Perceived Stress Scale is a popular scale used to measure ones feeling of stress. It measures how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded a person feels their life is. The questions are general questions, making them free of being specific to a certain group (Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein,