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. 2021 Mar 21;11(3):895.
doi: 10.3390/ani11030895.

Attachment to Pets Moderates Transitions in Latent Patterns of Mental Health Following the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a Survey of U.S. Adults

Shelby E McDonald  1 , Kelly E O'Connor  2 , Angela Matijczak  1 , Camie A Tomlinson  1 , Jennifer W Applebaum  3 , Jennifer L Murphy  1 , Barbara A Zsembik  3
Affiliations

Attachment to Pets Moderates Transitions in Latent Patterns of Mental Health Following the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a Survey of U.S. Adults

Shelby E McDonald et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

This cross-sectional study examined whether, and to what extent, attachment to pets was associated with changes in latent patterns of adults' perceived mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 1942). We used latent transition analysis to determine the stability of subgroup membership pre- and post-COVID and the effect of attachment to pets on transition probabilities. Mental health before COVID-19 was measured retrospectively. Five subgroups were identified: low symptoms, mild symptoms, moderate symptoms, high symptoms, and severe symptoms. Among individuals in the moderate and high symptoms subgroups, those who reported high attachment to pets generally had greater odds of transitioning to a less severe symptom profile (OR = 2.12) over time than those with low attachment to pets (OR = 1.39). However, those who had a severe symptom profile and high attachment to pets had lower odds of transitioning to a less severe symptom profile (OR = 0.30) and higher odds of maintaining a severe symptom profile (OR = 3.33) than those with low attachment to pets. These findings suggest that the protective and risk effects of attachment to pets differ based on individuals' psychological symptom patterns across multiple indicators. We discuss the implications of these findings for research, policy, and practice.

Keywords: COVID-19; cats; dogs; latent transition analysis; mental health; pets.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Analytic Model.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Subgroup means for pre- and post-COVID BSI subscales with 95% confidence intervals. Y-axis values represent mean scores for each subscale. (a) Subgroup means for pre-COVID BSI subscales; (b) subgroup means for post-COVID BSI subscales.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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