1. On Patients with Mood and Psychotic Disorders
Students: Kelly Kunkel, Danit Aharoni
Advisor: Dr. Barbara Harris
The Physical and Emotional Benefits of Animal-Assisted Therapy
On Patients with Mood and Psychotic Disorders
Results:
The research examined showed that AAT has positive implications and improved the symptoms of mood disorders, psychotic disorders, and general mental health.
Specific to psychotic disorders:
Increased Self esteem, and self determination
Lessened positive and negative  psychiatric symptoms
Decreased anxiety, fatigue, improved self efficacy, and confidence to perform activities of daily living.
For patients with mood disorders,:
Decreased pain, anxiety, fatigue,
Elevated mood state,
Decreased tension, and energy,
Increase confidence and assertiveness,
Decrease in undesirable behavior such as mania, and severe depression
For general mental health:
Negative mood state
Energy
Anxiety
Coping
Purpose: to identify Animal-assisted therapy’s physical, and emotional health benefits on patients with mood and psychotic disorders. To determine the population of mental health patients who receive the greatest benefit by using animal-assisted therapy.
Introduction:
Each year, nearly 63.3 million Americans meet DSM-V criteria for having a mental illness. Mental illness is defined as, “A clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome marked by the patient’s distress or disability or the risk of suffering disability or loss of freedom.. Mood and psychotic diseases are of particular importance because they often have debilitating consequences With the increasing number of individuals diagnosed with mental illness each year comes an increasing obligation to address their health needs. Treatment management of mental illness aims to improve the whole person and extends beyond conventional medical management. Of particular importance to this patient population is psychosocial support which often incorporates treatment modalities such as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Animal-assisted therapy is one example of CAM. This literature review examines the possible benefits animal-assisted therapy has on patients’ physical and emotional health in mental illness treatment. Animal-assisted therapy is defined as using trained animals to facilitate progressing patients toward therapeutic goals.
Nursing Implications:
Nursing professionals are patient advocates. Nurses can utilize CAM such as AAT and work together with researchers to discover the most therapeutic approach to do so. When Appropriate psychotic and mood disorder patient’s physical, spiritual, emotional, and social well-being will benefit.
Conceptual Framework – Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stage Therapy
Background/Significance:
The two most frequent primary mental health diagnoses among hospitalized patients in 2011 were mood disorders and schizophrenia (and other psychotic disorders). Almost 900,000 hospitalizations, mood disorders are the 6th most common diagnosis related to hospitalizations and the most common among children aged 1-17 years (Heslin & Weiss, 2015, p. 1). Not only are these mental illnesses causing a great deal of hospitalizations, the rate at which these patients are seeking inpatient treatment has increased at a faster rate than any other type of hospitalization between 2003 and 2011 (p. 1). Due to the increasing rates of hospitalization and readmission, there is a substantial need for alternative therapy modalities. The literature shows that animal-assisted therapy has been proven to have a variety of therapeutic benefits for these patients.
Discussion/Conclusion:
The data and literature were compared and contrasted across sub-categories. The results of which were overwhelmingly in favor of AAT benefits. For the first sub-category, patients with psychotic disorders, the literature showed that AAT can improve the following symptoms: increased Self esteem, self determination, lessened positive and negative  psychiatric symptoms, decreased anxiety, fatigue, improved self efficacy, and confidence to perform activities of daily living. For patients with mood disorders, the result was overwhelmingly decreased biological and physiological symptoms like pain, anxiety, fatigue, elevated mood state, decreased tension, and energy, increase confidence, assertiveness, and a decrease in undesirable behavior. For general mental health AAT was shown to improve patients negative mood state, energy, anxiety, assertiveness, and coping.
Methods: The research design used for this study was an integrative review of the literature. A computerized literature search was done through DePaul University’s online library resource. Scholarly articles were reviewed from three databases: CINAHL Complete, PubMed, and PsycInfo. Various combinations of terms were imputed into the databases. Examples of these include animal-assisted therapy, animal therapy, pet therapy, mood disorder, psychotic disorder, psych, psychiatric, inpatient psychiatric, and mental health.