Researchers find pet owners don’t have better mental health

We all remember the reports about so-called “pandemic puppies” and the growing number of pet adoptions in countries around the world as COVID-19 lockdowns brought social life to a halt in 2020.

The sudden increase in pet ownership is largely due to people seeking the comfort and companionship of animals to help cope with issues such as isolation, anxiety and depression. However, a new in-depth study, led by researchers at Aarhus University and King’s College London, suggests that the benefits of pet ownership may be overstated.

The study, recently published in Mental health and preventionreveals that owning a pet doesn’t necessarily provide the emotional boost many people expect.

No beneficial effects on mental health were found

The study followed 6,018 people in the UK over a 12-month period, assessing their levels of depression, anxiety, anhedonia (loss of pleasure) and loneliness.

Contrary to popular belief, the study found no evidence that pet ownership improved these mental health outcomes. In fact, pet owners reported slightly worse mental health outcomes than non-owners.

“Although the research on the topic is mixed, we were genuinely surprised to find that pet owners generally experienced slightly higher levels of depression, anxiety and anhedonia during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says the study’s lead author, Professor Christine Parsons from the Department of Clinical Medicine, and continues:

“This goes against a prevailing public belief that pets are beneficial for mental health.”

Testing the validity of the “Lassie effect”

Another common belief is that dog owners in particular benefit from increased physical activity and a more structured daily routine, which in turn could lead to better mental health.

Researchers found that dog owners were actually more likely to exercise daily (40% versus 35% of non-owners).

However, this increased activity was not correlated with better mental health outcomes, and no significant differences were found between dog owners and non-owners in maintaining daily structure.

The myth of the lonely “cat lady”

The only area where pet ownership has a mental health benefit is loneliness. In popular culture, the “cat lady” is a lonely, anxious woman with mental health issues. The new study also gave researchers a chance to test some of these cultural assumptions against reality.

Among people living alone, dog and cat owners reported slightly lower levels of loneliness than people without pets. Although the effects were small, they ran counter to the cliché of the lonely “cat lady.”

For those living with partners, families or roommates, pet owners reported no measurable differences in feelings of loneliness.

Although women in the study were clearly more likely to own cats (30.3% versus 22.7% of men), they were no more lonely, depressed, anxious or anhedonic than men who owned cats.

Let’s hope for a more informed public debate

Parsons says the new study will be helpful in managing expectations about the mental health benefits of pet ownership. She hopes the findings will temper public perception and media coverage, which she and her team of researchers say are biased toward positive discourse.

“Our findings suggest that while pets can provide companionship, they are by no means a silver bullet for mental health issues, especially during stressful times like a pandemic,” Parsons says.

Lead author Dr. Katherine Young notes, “This study adds to the patchwork of research on pet ownership and mental health. While some previous studies have suggested benefits, the large-scale, longitudinal nature of this research provides strong evidence to the contrary.”