Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Therapy Dogs On Preoperative Anxiety, Morgan Royer

Honors Theses

Humans and animals have been companions for ages but that relationship and its benefits have only begun to be explored. Recently, animal assisted therapies have been used to improve both psychological and physiological wellbeing. One of the most popular therapies uses dogs. There are many research studies on the effects of therapy dogs on children and adults with results that have found that the companionship of a dog significantly decreases their stress levels in many different situations, including health care facilities. I investigated the effects of therapy dogs on adults’ anxiety before going into day surgery. Participants were patients from …