La Trobe

Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment

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Restrictions, social isolation, and uncertainty related to the global COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the ways that parents and children maintain family routines, health, and wellbeing. Companion animals (pets) can be a critical source of comfort during traumatic experiences, although changes to family routines, such as those caused by COVID-19, can also bring about challenges like managing undesirable pet behaviours or pet-human interactions. We aimed to examine the relationship between pet attachment and mental health for both parents and their children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. A total of 1,034 parents living with a child under 18 years and a cat or dog completed an online cross-sectional survey between July and October 2020. Path analysis using multivariate linear regression was conducted to examine associations between objective COVID-19 impacts, subjective worry about COVID-19, human-pet attachment, and mental health. After adjusting for core demographic factors, stronger pet-child attachment was associated with greater child anxiety (parent-reported, p < .001). Parent-pet attachment was not associated with self-reported psychological distress (p = .42), however, parents who reported a strong emotional closeness with their pet reported greater psychological distress (p = .002). Findings highlight the role of pets during times of change and uncertainty. It is possible that families are turning to animals as a source of comfort, during a time when traditional social supports are less accessible. Alternatively, strong pet attachment is likely to reflect high levels of empathy, which might increase vulnerability to psychological distress. Longitudinal evidence is required to delineate the mechanisms underpinning pet attachment and mental health.

Funding

Support for the paid Facebook advertising was provided by the Roberta Holmes Transition to Contemporary Parenthood Program. Catherine Chamberlain was supported by a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (1161065).

History

Publication Date

2022-07-25

Journal

PLoS ONE

Volume

17

Issue

7

Article Number

e0271687

Pagination

17p.

Publisher

Public Library of Science

ISSN

1932-6203

Rights Statement

© 2022 Bennetts et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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