According to researchers of a new US study revealed that a strong bond with pets, especially dogs, could help relieve anxiety and depression in women, especially those who had experienced childhood trauma. The study was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open and the researchers included those from Harvard University.

The researchers said that while previous studies have looked at depression and anxiety among adult pet owners in mid-life and older, the findings have been “mixed”. However, actively engaging with pets has been previously studied to lower anxiety and depression levels in patients with HIV/AIDS and terminal cancer.

The researchers wanted to understand how attachment to pets can alleviate depression and anxiety and offer valuable insights for developing preventive and therapeutic strategies, particularly for those with insecure attachment styles from childhood trauma.

The researchers also said the positive influence of pets could be linked to levels of engagement and attachment to pets, rather than just owning them. They added that a stronger bond with pets is related to an insecure human attachment style.

For the study, the researchers took into consideration 214 women with an average age of 60 years. Of these, close to 73 per cent were survivors of childhood physical or sexual abuse. The authors used questionnaires to assess the women’s pet attachment and psychological tests to gauge anxiety and depression levels.

The researchers wrote, “Compared with participants with dog attachments, those attached to cats, on average, were more likely to have experienced life-threatening events, and less likely to have experienced childhood abuse.”

The researchers also found that women with cat attachments scored typically higher on depression and anxiety and were more likely to show clinical symptoms, compared to women with dog attachments. Overall, however, a stronger attachment to dogs was found to be linked with lower distress levels, along with lower anxiety and depression scores.

The authors wrote, “While not directly applicable to clinical practice, our results point to an important aspect of pet attachment as a factor improving the psychological well-being of particularly vulnerable owners, and will therefore also be of value to clinicians.”

The researchers said in this innovative study, we found that higher attachment to pets, especially dogs, was significantly associated with lower anxiety and depression symptoms. Estimates for these associations appeared even stronger among women with histories of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse.

The results add to research regarding the complex nature and consequences of human-animal bonds among those who may have developed an insecure human attachment style owing to childhood trauma, they said.

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