Assessment of dog owner adherence to veterinarians' flea and tick prevention recommendations in the United States using a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND

Adherence to a prescribed therapeutic regimen is a critical factor for achieving medication effectiveness and therefore treatment success. In the case of companion animal ectoparasite control, suboptimal owner adherence to medication recommendations is thought to be a common cause of treatment failure, and previous reports have found pet owners applying an average of 4.0-4.6 monthly flea and tick treatments per year to their dogs. This study investigated: US veterinary hospital self-reported flea and tick prevention recommendations; dog owner recollection of these recommendations; dog owner opinion on flea/tick recommendations and estimated owner flea and tick medication adherence based on veterinary hospital purchase records.

RESULTS

Veterinarians at 24 veterinary hospitals in 4 United States regions provided their flea and tick prevention recommendations. Five hundred fifty-nine dog owners, clients of the 24 hospitals, completed a survey evaluating their recollection of the hospitals' recommendations and their opinions regarding required treatment frequency. Almost all veterinary hospitals in this study recommended 12 months of flea and tick prevention but only 62% of participating dog owners recalled this recommendation. The average owner response was that their dogs require 10.5 months of flea and tick prevention annually. Owner opinions were significantly different among U.S. regions with pet owners in the northeast U.S. believing that they needed significantly less canine flea and tick protection than pet owners in other parts of the United States. The estimated actual flea and tick prevention coverage was 6.1 months based on owner medication purchases over a 12-month period.

CONCLUSIONS

In the United States, dog owner opinions and actions show that their flea and tick treatment adherence falls short of veterinarians' recommendations.