Puppy Love, Adolescence, and Chronic Illness: The Importance of Pets for Youth with Type 1 Diabetes

The benefits of animal-companion ties to well-being are consistently documented, yet few studies use patient-centered methodologies to examine how youth living with chronic illnesses rely on domestic pets for support. Youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D) aged 12 to 19 years (N=40) completed surveys involving a prompt to take five photos of “what diabetes means to you,” with an accompanying narrative. Content analysis was conducted for photos/narratives and numeric variables analyzed including socio-economic status (SES: measured by total household income and years of parental education) and HbA1C. More than half of the youth participants took pictures of coping mechanisms, including pictures of their pets. In fact, pictures of pets outnumbered pictures of people three to one. Pet depictions were captured by youth from all SES levels. Youth with T1D identify pets as an important source of support. More research is needed to understand how pets may offset disease burden for youth with T1D.