Department of Ethology, Institute of Biology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
MTA-ELTE Lendület "Momentum" Companion Animal Research Group, Budapest, Hungary.
PLoS One. 2024 Oct 29;19(10):e0312021. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312021. eCollection 2024.
Over the past two decades, farm animal-assisted therapies have become popular. However, the effects of farm animals on healthy people's mental states have not yet been investigated. In Study 1, we aimed to explore whether positive effects of human-animal interaction (HAI) can be detected in healthy farm volunteers even after short-term (2-3 hours) work with goats and goatlings on a goat farm. We found that the participants' state anxiety decreased (p < 0.001) while their trust levels increased (p < 0.001) after interacting with goats. Nevertheless, it is possible that time spent in nature alone can have a beneficial effect on well-being. Therefore, in Study 2, we compared the results of Study 1 with those of a similar short-term outdoor treatment, walking in a botanical garden as a visitor. Similar but smaller effects were found for garden visitors. Decreases in anxiety scores and increases in trust scores were more pronounced in farm volunteers (anxiety: 25% vs 13%, p < 0.001; trust: 13% vs 3%, p = 0.002) after the treatments. Overall, the results suggest that the novel experience of interacting with goats and goatlings has a more positive effect on the mental state of healthy humans than walking in a botanical garden. This finding offer a strong foundation for developing animal assisted therapy methods for individuals with short or long term mental problems, but they can also enhance the wellbeing of mentally healthy people.
在过去的二十年中，农场动物辅助疗法变得越来越流行。然而，农场动物对健康人群精神状态的影响尚未得到研究。在研究 1 中，我们旨在探索与山羊和羊羔在山羊农场进行短暂（2-3 小时）工作后，人类与动物的互动（HAI）的积极影响是否可以在健康的农场志愿者中检测到。我们发现，参与者的状态焦虑降低（p<0.001），而信任水平增加（p<0.001）与山羊互动后。然而，独自在自然中度过时间也可能对幸福感产生有益的影响。因此，在研究 2 中，我们将研究 1 的结果与类似的短期户外治疗（作为访客在植物园中散步）的结果进行了比较。植物园访客的结果相似但较小。在治疗后，农场志愿者的焦虑评分下降（焦虑：25%比 13%，p<0.001），信任评分增加（信任：13%比 3%，p=0.002）。总的来说，结果表明，与山羊和羊羔互动的新体验对健康人群的精神状态产生的积极影响大于在植物园中散步。这一发现为开发针对短期或长期精神问题个体的动物辅助治疗方法提供了坚实的基础，但也可以增强心理健康人群的幸福感。
