Pet ownership provides buffer against depression for AIDS-infected men

Relationships with pets likely reduce the incidence of depression in men with AIDS, suggest results of a recently published study. While previous research has found a link between pet ownership and well-being among children, people with disabilities and senior citizens, this study is the first to find the same pattern for men with AIDS.

To attain the result, a research team headed by psychologist Judith M. Siegel, PhD, MSHyg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, surveyed more than 1,800 gay and bisexual men in three U.S. cities. The men were participants in the long-term Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, conducted to track the AIDS epidemic. Almost 40 percent of the men surveyed were HIV-positive and more than 10 percent had developed AIDS.

In clinical assessment, men with AIDS, particularly those with few confidants, showed markedly higher levels of depression than did HIV-positive men without AIDS and HIV-negative men.

But whereas AIDS infected men without pets were three times more likely to report depression than men without AIDS, AIDS-infected men who owned pets were only 50 percent more likely to suffer from depression.

The benefits of pet ownership were strongest for men who had few confidants but a close attachment to their pets--sleeping in the same room as their pets at night, for example, and cuddling them frequently. The reason, says Siegel, is that pet companionship helps reduce the isolation that can accompany AIDS.

"Not only is AIDS often a stigmatizing condition, but many of these men lose friends and companions to it, too," says Siegel. "The attachment and tactile comfort that a pet provides can reduce feelings of stress and loneliness."

The only potential drawback of pet ownership for men with AIDS is a health risk posed by pet feces. But Siegel says good hygiene practices, particularly when cleaning litter containers, can prevent the problem. Most men in the study said health risks hadn't deterred them from owning pets.

The study appeared in the April issue of the journal, AIDS Care (Vol. 11, No. 2
p. 157-169).

--B. Murray



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