Professional paws: Therapy dogs help health care workers 'get our emotions out'
Abby Kirkland / For the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Hospital visits by therapy dogs have been known to not only improve a patient’s mood, but also reduce their stress levels, heart rate and blood pressure.
Beth Steinberg, associate chief nurse at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, wondered if the dogs’ visits could also brighten the moods of doctors, nurses and other health care providers.
“We have always focused on well-being interventions and believe that a healthy and well staff will translate into better patient outcomes,” she said.
To put data to those efforts, Steinberg, a senior researcher with the OSU College of Medicine, interviewed 64 health care workers before and after visits with therapy dog teams across eight weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants could interact up to three times a week with the teams, from OSU’s Buckeye Paws, a program that dates to 2020 and aims to support the mental health of Wexner Medical Center staff.
The results of the study were recently published in the International Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, with one of the bigger takeaways that the dog time — whether the interactions were direct or indirect — improved mood.
“To be able to sit down and kneel next to the dogs and stroke their backs and give them a belly rub was an outlet that was just immeasurable,” said Craig Dixon, a registered nurse in the ICU for 10 years.
The participants were all health care providers who worked in two intensive care units and two medical surgical units. The therapy dog handlers were employees of the Wexner Center or Ohio State University.
Steinberg believes that the handlers’ familiarity with OSU’s culture and campus was a benefit when they interacted with their co-workers.
The study measured mood — self-reported, with participants gauging via a basic 1-10 scale — perceived stress, burnout and work engagement immediately before and after therapy dog interactions, with staffers able to spend as much or as little time as they liked with the canines.
Self-reported positive mood, the study found, nearly doubled among participants. Stress and burnout declined slightly over the course of the eight weeks; more studies are needed with regard to the effects of therapy dog interaction on those factors as well as work engagement.
“When the teams entered the work areas, people started telling the dogs about their days,” said Steinberg, who took part in the visits with her therapy dog, a Labrador retriever named Brienne. “Everything changes when the dogs come, the smiles, the collaboration, the mood.”
For Dixon, the pandemic timing of the study was important. While working in the ICU has always been stressful, he said, during COVID it was unbearable.
“At first it started with the prison population. They just kept coming. It was overwhelming. Then the deaths started to happen, and it never stopped. We had no time to process, no time to grieve. I didn’t know how to put words to my feelings,” Dixon said.
There was an immediate effect when Dixon saw handler Mary Justice and her golden retriever, Shiloh, and Steinberg with her dog.
“When you have a dog, you can pet them while you’re talking. It makes talking much easier,” Dixon said.
Steinberg and Justice, who is also the chief administrative officer for OSU’s College of Nursing, started by asking the health care workers how their days were going.
Each handler was trained to comfort and be an outlet for those they came in contact with, to help the health care workers explore their feelings while talking with the dog.
“The dogs help us to get our emotions out,” Dixon said. “It’s one thing to have the dog there for comfort, but it’s another thing to have a person who can listen and recognize someone who is in pain.”
Prior to the official launch of Buckeye Paws in 2020, Justice had worked on a pet therapy team for five years with another golden retriever, Zack. That experience gave her insight into how therapy dogs can enhance the lives of others, she said.
The Medical Center had a small, patient-focused therapy dog program at the hospital at the time. But taking dogs to the health care workers at the hospital was a different approach.
After talking with various departments in the health care center, Steinberg began to write a policy to present to management. Along the way, each woman brought puppies Shiloh and Brianne into their homes as potential therapy dogs and began training them together.
That included 16 weeks of obedience training for the dogs, who achieved their AKC Canine Good Citizen certification and ultimately their therapy dog certification.
Once training was complete, Justice and Shiloh went to the emergency room and ICU and started visiting with health care workers, kicking off Buckeye Paws.
“At the core, this was a staff-driven initiative,” Justice said. “Over the past five years, it has been amazing to see the reactions of staff, especially in the first days of COVID. It became a saving part during a very difficult time.”
Even a five-minute break can give workers a chance to regroup, take a brief respite and gather the energy to go back and continue a shift, she said. “When the dogs come in, it stops us and allows us to breathe.”
As with people, every therapy dog has a different personality and style. Shiloh, for instance, is able to sense when someone is going through a particularly difficult time, Justice said.
“He senses stress, and he will lean into someone to tell them, ‘I’ve got you.’” And, as Shiloh’s partner, that helps Justice as she interacts with her co-worker.
Buckeye Paws handlers are trained on how to respond to the health care workers when they share their feelings, which, for Justice, is a huge benefit of the program.
“I’ve had people share everything from being diagnosed with cancer to the pain of having a conversation with a patient’s family about end of life. The gift that these dogs give is the connection we can make on a person-to-person level.”
Since 2023, counselors have been available for dog handlers should they need to talk with a professional about feelings of physical, emotional or mental stress from either supporting or being exposed to some of the same challenges that their co-workers experience on the job.
For that reason, therapy dog shifts are usually 30 minutes to an hour. The length of the shift depends on the dog and the handler, and what is going on that day in the various departments they visit.
Typically, more experienced therapy dogs can take longer shifts, although on high-stress days, the dogs may not be able to maintain their focus for as long as usual.
Locally, St. Clair Health is a health care system that has implemented a therapy dog program specifically for employees at St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon. (Full disclosure: The reporter is a volunteer therapy dog handler who has taken her dogs to St. Clair Hospital.)
During COVID, stress levels were extremely high and “we wanted something to keep the staff’s spirits up after watching so many patients pass away,” said Diane Puccetti, a vice president and chief nursing officer with St. Clair Hospital. “We needed something to get people out of the stress zone and make them smile. Food and drinks are good, but there’s something about the face of a dog that makes people smile.”
Puccetti organized occasional visits for the staff to meet dog-handler teams at a specific location in the hospital. Then, in March 2023, the hospital launched the FURst Friday program, and the therapy dog program was implemented on a regular basis.
Lindsay Meucci, vice president of marketing, communications and advocacy for St. Clair Health, and others worked with the infection team to establish a program in which two or three therapy dogs would be stationed inside the hospital for two one-hour shifts so that employees could come and interact with them and their handlers.
The program was extremely well received. However, it became apparent to Meucci that certain departments, such as the emergency room and the Family Birth Center, were unable to participate because their staffers could not leave their work areas. So, the program expanded this summer.
“Now the dog handler teams can walk throughout the hospital to extend their reach,” said Meucci. “They just help everyone to take a deep breath. I love being part of the program.”
Puccetti agreed. “Taking dogs to the unit where people are working is so satisfying for them. Some people couldn’t get away to visit the dogs.”
All the dogs in the program are certified therapy dogs, as well as obedience trained and comfortable in a hospital environment.
“We try to ensure the dog has a good experience too,” Meucci said.
For instance, one of the dogs was not comfortable with elevators, so his visits are scheduled on one floor.
“It’s fun to see all the different breeds, everything from great Danes to labs to shepherds,” she said.
In addition to dog-handler visits, Meucci encourages other pet-related activities. Walk through any unit in the hospital and you’ll likely see pictures of the staff’s dogs on the walls. Meucci is also planning a dog-handler Halloween costume parade Nov. 1 to coincide with the dogs’ regular FURst Friday visit.
For Nurses’ Week, they held a “cutest pet” contest. Pictures of staffers’ pets were posted, and anyone could vote.
“It was fun for them to think about something other than stress,” Puccetti said.
And who better to shift thinking than a well-training pooch?
“It can be hard to compartmentalize, especially when you know the likely outcome,” Dixon said. “Having Buckeye Paws helps to keep me grounded and to navigate what I can’t control in the hospital system. It allows me to go on for another day.”
Abby Kirkland ([email protected]) is a Mt. Lebanon-based freelance writer and volunteer therapy dog handler who has taken her dogs to St. Clair Hospital.