Oral Presentation The International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ): 27th Annual Conference 2018

In the eye of the parent: The potential of dogs to improve the acceptability of trauma-focused therapies for sexually abused children.   (#14)

Tania Signal 1 , Janene Dravsnik 1 , Doreen Canoy 1
  1. Central Queensland University, QLD, Australia

Trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy (TF-CBT) is well evidenced and is currently the most common treatment for post-traumatic psychological symptoms. However high attrition from, and relatively low acceptability of, TF-CBT approaches with children following sexual trauma have been noted. Adjunct therapies that can improve acceptability, promote treatment adherence and reduce attrition rates for this group would be extremely beneficial. While inclusion of a trained animal, often a dog or horse, is increasingly being viewed as a useful adjunct for therapy little is known about consumer/lay acceptability of including an animal within treatment of childhood trauma. In this study a community sample of Australian parents and caregivers (N = 267) read one of two vignettes describing problematic behaviour following sexual trauma in either a 6- or 13-year old girl. Participants then rated their acceptability of three described treatment alternatives: traditional CBT therapy alone, with medication and with canine-assisted therapy. Acceptability of the canine-assisted adjunct was significantly higher than either of the other two options F(1.66, 435.48) = 72.63, p = <.001). Acceptability was unaffected by child age, parental education and/or previous experience with dogs reflecting the broad acceptability seen in other studies surveying professionals. Importantly however, while other researchers have noted that therapy animal welfare is an ethical imperative for AAT clinicians, the current study suggests that animal welfare might not factor into the evaluation of treatment options by (parental) consumers. The implications of this for AAT clinicians, consumers and animals included in therapy in Australia given changes in therapy funding (NDIS) will be discussed.