Animal-Assisted Therapy in the Residential Treatment of Dual Pathology

Abstract

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a complementary intervention of therapy that has shown positive results in the treatment of various pathologies. This study assesses the viability of the implementation and the effectiveness of an AAT program in patients diagnosed with substance abuse disorder and associated mental disorders (dual pathology). For the study, a dynamic prospective cohort was used, consisting of 43 patients in residential treatment. The program consisted of 10 sessions with a duration of about 60 min, where data was collected in the 3rd, 6th and 10th sessions. The Life Skills Profile questionnaire (LSP) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) were used for subsequent evaluation. Patients who participated in the program showed an improvement in daily skills, which favoured a better quality of life and decreased impulsiveness, enabling them to regain self-control. These results suggest that the dog can be a multi-sensory stimulus that captures attention, and improves motivation, cooperation and patient involvement in therapy. It was concluded that AAT can serve as an adjunctive therapy in the rehabilitation processes of people diagnosed with dual pathology.