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U.S. military veterans experience high rates of mental health challenges and sleep disturbances compared to non-military populations, in part due to service-related trauma (Bai et al., 2023; Na et al., 2023). Sleep and mental health have a bidirectional relationship; in fact, research indicates that treating poor sleep can improve mental health (Gee et al., 2019). Dog ownership and sharing a bed with a dog is common practice in the United States, with some research indicating that dogs can benefit both sleep and mental health (Hoffman et al. 2020; Leighton et al., 2022). However, the research exploring the impact of dog bed-sharing on sleep and mental health and qualitative inquiries into the mechanisms by which dog bed-sharing could benefit sleep are limited. To address this dearth in the literature and to help inform future sleep and mental health interventions among military veterans, we (1) quantitatively investigate the perceived impact of dogs on sleep among U.S. military veterans and (2) qualitatively explore perceptions of how dogs benefit sleep among military veterans.
Materials and Methods:
U.S. military veterans were recruited via veteran organizations and social media to participate in a nationwide online survey. SPSS version 29.0 was used to calculate descriptive statistics for quantitative data. To explore potential mechanisms for how dogs could improve sleep and well-being, two of the authors conducted a thematic analysis of the qualitative data using NVivo version 14.
Results: 114 U.S. military veterans completed quantitative and qualitative questions investigating the perceived impact of dogs on sleep. The sample was predominantly male (60.5%, n=69) and white (74.6%, n=85).
Participants were asked to rate the impact of their dog (companion, emotional support, or service dog) on their sleep (1 = disrupts my sleep to 5 = benefits my sleep). The mean response was 4.5 (SD=0.9), with the majority of the sample (85.0%, n=97) indicating their dog benefitted or mildly benefitted their sleep. Of these 97 participants, major themes surrounding “In your own words, how do you feel your dog impacts your sleep?” included: (1) Symptom relief: anxiety, nightmares, stress, and hypervigilance and (2) sleep promotion through relaxation. Exemplar quotes include: "I feel secure. He provides deep pressure therapy while I sleep and wakes me from night terrors;" “When I use my service dog, he helps me focus on his breathing, and my mind turns to more positive thoughts which help with sleep.”
Conclusion:
Our results support the value of pets as an aid for sleep and mental health promotion and how pets may help promote relaxation and reduce mental health symptomatology to promote sleep. We recommend that social workers consider incorporating pet interaction into treatment plans and therapeutic recommendations. Future research should investigate the long-term impact of dogs on both sleep and mental health, as well as other types of pets, to increase understanding and use of canine-assisted interventions in improving U.S. veterans' health and wellbeing.