Evaluation of the effects of hospital visit stress on physiologic parameters in the cat

Abstract

Physiologic parameters such as blood pressure, rectal temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate are an important part of the medical assessment of a patient. However, these factors can potentially be affected by stress. The purpose of this study was to compare physiologic parameter data gathered from cats in the home environment with those gathered in a veterinary hospital. Thirty healthy cats were evaluated both at home and at Colorado State University's Veterinary Medical Center. Doppler systolic blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate were recorded, and the differences between the values obtained in the home and veterinary clinic environments were evaluated using the Wilcoxon sign rank test. A significant difference was found in blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate between the home and veterinary hospital environments. This information may help practitioners recognize that physiologic abnormalities can sometimes be due to transportation or environmental stress rather than medical illness.

Fig 1.

Bland—Altman plots illustrating the difference between the home and clinic environment for (A) blood pressure, (B) rectal temperature, (C) heart rate and (D) respiratory rate. The horizontal line represents no difference. Cats below the line experienced an increase in the measured parameter in the clinic environment. Using a Wilcoxon sign rank test, a statistically significant difference was found between the home environment and the veterinary hospital environment for blood pressure (P = 0.04), heart rate (P < 0.0001), and respiratory rate (P = 0.01).