It’s not every day you see a dog trotting through the halls of a hospital, but at the JLC, Quattro the facility dog is changing the way we think about mental health care for veterans.
Dogs are often called a man’s best friend, and for military personnel facing mental health challenges, they also play a crucial role in supporting mental health and overall wellbeing.
With 14 years of experience as a mental health nurse and Army Reservist, Nurse Consultant at Jamie Larcombe Centre (JLC) Rosie Barnes has seen the struggles veterans face and believes working with Quattro, a yellow Labrador, can positively impact their mental health and wellbeing.
“There’s a lot of research around the impact of assistance dogs on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but not for those with other mental health challenges, or more specifically on facility dogs,” Rosie said.
“This research aims to help more veterans by building research to expand the eligibility criteria for assistance dogs, which is currently for those who have service-related PTSD only.”
With funding from Military and Emergency Services Health Australia (MESHA – a charity of The Hospital Research Foundation Group), Rosie will lead research into how Quattro impacts the mental health of inpatients at JLC.
“Our unit specialises in veteran mental health, and we know assistance dogs help reduce anxiety, improving socialisation, enhance veteran functioning and reduce symptom severity around PTSD,” Rosie said.
“We want to build on existing research with this study on a facility dog, which will build further evidence on the broader mental health benefits to help more veterans.”
The control group will receive usual care, attending the activities program without a facility dog, while the intervention group will have Quattro integrated into the inpatient activities program.
This will allow Rosie to compare the impact of Quattro’s presence on veterans’ mental health using validated tools in the form of a survey.
“Quattro will be there as a calming support for veterans, to give them
motivation to attend and socially participate in group activities, as well as helping with distressing symptoms such as anxiety,” Rosie said.
“We will then conduct interviews so we can measure the participants experiences of working with Quattro.”
Through this research project, Rosie hopes to pave the way for a broader study on veterans facing challenges beyond PTSD, ensuring they too can access the support of assistance dogs.
“Equally this research – if it does demonstrate effectiveness – might be able to support other units to integrate trained facility dogs into healthcare settings within Australia and overseas,” Rosie said.
“This research wouldn’t be possible without MESHA. I hope the results can help even more veterans receive support from facility and assistance dogs alongside clinical treatments.”
