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Dog Owners' Survey reveals Medical Alert Dogs can alert to multiple conditions and multiple people
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 4, p e0249191 (2021), Reeve, C, Wilson, C, Hanna, D & Gadbois, S 2021, ' Dog Owners’ Survey reveals Medical Alert Dogs can alert to multiple conditions and multiple people ', PLoS One, vol. 16, no. 4, e0249191 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249191, PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2021.
-
Abstract
- Medical Alert Dogs (MADs) are a promising support system for a variety of medical conditions. Emerging anecdotal reports suggest that dogs may alert to additional health conditions and different people other than those that they were trained for or initially began alerting. As the use of medical alert dogs increases, it is imperative that such claims are documented empirically. The overall aims of this study were to record the proportion of MAD owners who have a dog that alerts to multiple health conditions or to people other than the target person and to determine whether any sociodemographic variables were associated with dogs alerting to multiple conditions, multiple people, or both. MAD owners completed an online survey that contained a series of forced choice questions. Sixty-one participants reported a total of 33 different conditions to which dogs alerted. Eighty-four percent of participants reported that their dog alerted to multiple conditions and 54% reported that their dog alerted to multiple people. This is the first study to document that a large percentage of people report that their MAD alerts to multiple conditions and/or to multiple people. We present a discussion of how these alerting abilities could develop, but questions about the underlying mechanisms remain.
- Subjects :
- Male
Pulmonology
Emotions
Social Sciences
Anxiety
Surveys
medicine.disease_cause
Medical Conditions
0302 clinical medicine
Surveys and Questionnaires
Medicine and Health Sciences
Psychology
Psychological stress
Mammals
Multidisciplinary
Behavior, Animal
Animal Behavior
Pets and Companion Animals
Headaches
Eukaryota
Cardiovascular Diseases
Research Design
Vertebrates
Medicine
Female
Medical emergency
medicine.symptom
Dog owners
Research Article
Science
MEDLINE
030209 endocrinology & metabolism
Research and Analysis Methods
Sensitivity and Specificity
medical alert dogs
Respiratory Disorders
03 medical and health sciences
Dogs
Signs and Symptoms
Metabolic Diseases
medicine
Animals
Humans
canine olfaction
Animal behavior
Migraine
Behavior
Survey Research
Two-alternative forced choice
Organisms
Biology and Life Sciences
medicine.disease
Service Animals
Asthma
Amniotes
Support system
Nervous System Diseases
Clinical Medicine
Zoology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....38a6507dc9e62802d669d5bf32fcbc14