Background: There are many psychiatric clinics institutions with animals on their wards, but little is known about the effects of the presence of these animals. Therefore, we investigated the effects of ward cats on patient satisfaction in patients with psychosis, depression and addiction during their stationary psychiatric treatment at the University Psychiatric Clinic Basel, Switzerland.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed satisfaction of 170 patients in 2016 and 2017. Half of them stayed in a ward with a cat while the other half were on a ward without cat. Patient satisfaction was measured via the MüPF27. Because the MüPF27 has no items regarding ward cats, we created a semi-structured interview and additionally interviewed 33 patients on their opinion on ward cats. Group differences between patients on a ward with or without cat were analyzed in SPSS Statistics using the Mann-Whitney U-Test while the Spearman’s correlation was used to determine the relation between different questions.
Results: The retrospective data in 2016 show that patients staying in a ward with cat had a significantly higher overall satisfaction (z=-2.25, p=0.024, d=0.34) and recommend the psychiatric clinic significantly more often compared to patients without a cat on the ward (z=-2.27, p=0.023, d=0.35). The data from 2017 is currently analyzed and will be presented at the congress.
The semi-structured interview show that the patient’s attitude towards ward cats correlated significantly with the intensity of their contact with the cat (p=0.027, r=0.050*) and the frequency they see the cat (p=0.002, r=0.666**). The emotional relation of the patients to the cat correlated significantly with their belief, that the station atmosphere would change if the cat wasn’t there anymore (p=0.015, r= - 0.561*). This belief is also correlated with how often the patients see the cat (p=0.002, r=-0.676**), how much they like the cat (p=0.041, r=-0.486*) and with their attitude towards the cat (p=0.011, r=-0.585*).
Conclusion: Our results indicate that the presence of a cat can have positive effects on the patient satisfaction. Nevertheless, it seems that the effects of ward cats depend on the quality of the relationship and the intensity of the interaction between patients and cats.