Having cared for her own dog as it battled two chronic diseases, Kent State psychology professor Mary Beth Spitznagel knew that caring for sick pets can be similar to caring for family members.
She wanted to know more. She’d already developed a program to help veterinarians and their staff cope with chronically ill pets and their owners, but wanted to know more about the stress, anxiety and depression the pet owners themselves actually feel.
Zoetis, a global animal pharmaceutical company, was on board. In December, Zoetis granted Spitznagel $65,000 to research “Caregiver Burden in Owners of Pets with Chronic Diseases.” Her lab in the Department of Psychological Sciences studies the challenges pet owners face and ways to help them.
“Caregiver burden is about the multiple challenges that a caregiver faces on a daily basis, which might be an animal having accidents in the house, finding ways to effectively clean up after those accidents, finding ways to get an animal to take medication that maybe they are not interested in taking and not understanding why they should be taking it, and an animal that has lost its appetite and isn’t eating,” Spitznagel said.
The idea is to better understand the conditions under which pet owners develop caregiver burden. Ultimately, she would like to develop a program that could alleviate that burden.
“The owner is making decisions about that animal’s treatment, so I think to Zoetis, being able to better understand what the owner’s experiencing in the context of that pet’s illness is helpful for them,” she said.
As pet owners face the decision to euthanize a beloved pet, they find themselves balancing their own quality of life with that of their animal, Spitznagel said.
People solve problems differently, employ different coping strategies and have unique personalities, so the program Spitznagel hopes to develop would definitely not be one-size-fits-all. That means multiple specific interventions for each type of problem. The guiding principle, she said, will be to help both animal and owner have the best quality of life possible as long as possible.
Research takes time and depends on continued funding. Spitznagel anticipates that simply identifying predictors of behaviors will take several years. The next steps are to develop evidence-based interventions, seek reaction from pet owners and tweak whatever is needed.
If all goes according to plan, she hopes to have a program pet owners can easily access and use ready to roll out in five years.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.