The mental health effects of pet death during childhood: is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at
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The mental health effects of pet death during childhood: is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Katherine M. Crawford1 · Yiwen Zhu1 · Kathryn A. Davis1 · Samantha Ernst1 · Kristina Jacobsson1 · Kristen Nishimi2 · Andrew D. A. C. Smith3 · Erin C. Dunn4 Received: 24 September 2019 / Accepted: 29 June 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Pet ownership is common. Growing evidence suggests children form deep emotional attachments to their pets. Yet, little is known about children’s emotional reactions to a pet’s death. The goal of this study was to describe the relationship between experiences of pet death and risk of childhood psychopathology and determine if it was “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. Data came from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a UK-based prospective birth cohort (n = 6260). Children were characterized based on their exposure to pet ownership and pet death from birth to age 7 (never loved; loved without loss; loved with loss). Psychopathology symptoms at age 8 were compared across groups using multivariable linear regression. Psychopathology symptoms were higher among children who had loved with loss compared to those who had loved without loss (β = 0.35, p = 0.013; 95% CI = 0.07, 0.63), even after adjustment for other adversities. This group effect was more pronounced in males than in females. There was no difference in psychopathology symptoms between children who had loved with loss and those who had never loved (β = 0.20, p = 0.31, 95% CI = −0.18–0.58). The developmental timing, recency, or accumulation of pet death was unassociated with psychopathology symptoms. Pet death may be traumatic for children and associated with subsequent mental health difficulties. Where childhood pet ownership and pet bereavement is concerned, Tennyson’s pronouncement may not apply to children’s grief responses: it may not be “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. Keywords Depressive disorders · Epidemiology · Cohort · Trauma · Risk assessment · Childhood · Experience · Pet · Death
Introduction Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01594-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Erin C. Dunn [email protected] 1
Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
2
Center for Genomic Medicine, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan, School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
3
Applied Statistics Group, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
4
Center for Genomic Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Center On the Developing Child at Harvard University, 185 Cambridge Street, Simches Research Building 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Pet ownership is common. Roughly half of households i
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