Norwegian National Advisory Unit On Concurrent Substance Abuse & Mental Health Disorders, Hamar, Norway.
Institute of Clinical Medicine, UIT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2023 Sep 27;18(1):57. doi: 10.1186/s13722-023-00411-z.
Recovery from substance use is commonly seen as a process of integrating social relationships and creating a sense of meaning in one's life. Dog owners describe a close relationship with their dog that impacts many aspects of their everyday life. Yet for individuals with substance use disorder (SUD), little is known about how dog ownership could affect their lives. The aim of this study was to explore how people living with SUD experience and describe their everyday life when owning a dog.
Eight semi-structured in-depth individual interviews were conducted with people having personal experience of living with SUD and owning a dog. Data were gathered and analysed using qualitative content analysis.
The analysis yielded four categories, reflecting different aspects of dog ownership. Living with SUD and owning a dog was primarily something positive in their life. People increased their social connections personally and within society. They felt a belonging which gave a sense of agency and purpose, and they developed structure in their day and boundaries to their environment. Dog ownership, however, could hinder access to services which was found to be challenging for some participants.
The owning of a dog can lead to changes that parallel those of a recovery process. This finding adds to the research on the connection that dogs can provide and shows how pertinent this can be particularly for vulnerable persons such as those with SUD.
物质使用障碍的康复通常被视为一个整合社会关系和在生活中创造意义感的过程。狗主人描述了他们与狗之间的亲密关系，这种关系影响了他们日常生活的许多方面。然而，对于患有物质使用障碍（SUD）的个体，人们对狗的拥有如何影响他们的生活知之甚少。本研究的目的是探讨患有 SUD 的人在养狗时如何体验和描述他们的日常生活。
对有个人 SUD 生活和养狗经验的人进行了 8 次半结构化深度个体访谈。使用定性内容分析收集和分析数据。
分析产生了四个类别，反映了养狗的不同方面。患有 SUD 并养狗在他们的生活中主要是积极的。人们在个人和社会层面上增加了社交联系。他们感到归属感，这赋予了他们代理权和目标感，他们的日常生活有了结构，环境也有了界限。然而，狗的拥有可能会阻碍一些参与者获得服务，这对一些参与者来说是具有挑战性的。
养狗可以导致与康复过程相似的变化。这一发现增加了关于狗可以提供的联系的研究，并展示了这对那些易受伤害的人（如患有 SUD 的人）来说是多么相关。
