Therapy Dogs May Reduce Child, Parent Anxiety in the Emergency Department

TUESDAY, March 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Adjunctive use of therapy dogs in standard child-life therapy is tied to a modest but significantly greater reduction in both child-reported and parental-reported child anxiety in the pediatric emergency department, according to a study published online March 14 in JAMA Network Open.

Heather P. Kelker, M.D., from Indiana University in Indianapolis, and colleagues assessed whether adjunctive use of therapy dogs in child-life therapy can reduce both child-reported anxiety and parental report of child anxiety in the pediatric emergency department. The analysis included 80 children (aged 5 to 17 years) with suspected moderate-to-high anxiety who were randomly assigned to standard child-life therapy with or without exposure to a therapy dog and handler for approximately 10 minutes.

The researchers found that a total of nine children (23 percent) in the control group had a greater than 2.5-point decrease in the FACES score versus 18 (46 percent) in the intervention group. At 120 minutes, mean child-reported FACES scores decreased to 3.6 points in the control group and 3.0 points in the intervention group. Fourteen control participants (35 percent) received ketamine, midazolam, lorazepam, or droperidol compared with seven (18 percent) in the intervention group. While not significantly different between the groups, child and parent salivary cortisol decreased from baseline to 45 minutes.

“These findings support the use of therapy dogs to help reduce pain and anxiety without the use of chemical or physical constraint,” the authors write.

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