Pet ownership, social support, and one-year survival after acute myocardial infarction in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST)
Abstract
Social support and pet ownership, a nonhuman form of social support, have both been associated with increased coronary artery disease survival. The independent effects of pet ownership, social support, disease severity, and other psychosocial factors on 1-year survival after acute myocardial infarction are examined prospectively. The Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial provided physiologic data on a group of post-myocardial infarction patients with asymptomatic ventricular arrhythmias. An ancillary study provided psychosocial data, including pet ownership, social support, recent life events, future life events, anxiety, depression, coronary prone behavior, and expression of anger. Subjects (n = 424) were randomly selected from patients attending participating Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial sites and completed baseline psychosocial questionnaires. One year survival data were obtained from 369 patients (87%), of whom 112 (30.4%) owned pets and 20 (5.4%) died. Logistic regression indicates that high social support (p < 0.068) and owning a pet (p = 0.085) tend to predict survival independent of physiologic severity and demographic and other psychosocial factors. Dog owners (n = 87, 1 died) are significantly less likely to die within 1 year than those who did not own dogs (n = 282, 19 died; p < 0.05); amount of social support is also an independent predictor of survival (p = 0.065). Both pet ownership and social support are significant predictors of survival, independent of the effects of the other psychosocial factors and physiologic status. These data confirm and extend previous findings relating pet ownership and social support to survival among patients with coronary artery disease.
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Many studies have demonstrated the association between pet ownership and cardiovascular health, and dog owners appear to have a significantly greater chance of survival after a heart attack compared to people without pets.
“Many studies have demonstrated the association between pet ownership and cardiovascular health and dog owners appear to have a significantly greater chance of survival after a heart attack compared to people without pets [25,26,27].”
From A One Health Perspective on the Human-Companion Animal Relationship with Emphasis on Zoonotic Aspects. (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
Those who own a pet have been shown to display reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, require less medical care, and have improvement of life quality and quick recovery after heartbreaking events.
“those who own a pet have been shown to display reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, require less medical care, and it has also been reported that there is an improvement of life quality and quick recovery after heartbreaking events [209-213]”
From Pet roundworms and hookworms: A continuing need for global worming (2012) · cites this paper as [211]
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- Authors
- Friedmann, E., & Thomas, S. A.
- Affiliations
- City University of New York (US)
- ORCID
- Friedmann, Erika
- Venue
- The American Journal of Cardiology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1995-12
- Volume
- 76
- Issue
- 17
- Pages
- 1213-1217
- ISSN
- 0002-9149 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1964585072
- Cited by
- 489
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 2.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The American Journal of Cardiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (7r01nr002043-03)
- National Institute of Nursing Research (5RO1 NR02043-01)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac Health and Mental Health
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Human-Animal Interaction Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Acute Myocardial Infarction Research
- Keywords
- pet ownership, social support, acute myocardial infarction, one-year survival, dog ownership, psychosocial factors, coronary artery disease, anxiety, depression, anger expression, life events, Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Animals, Animals, Domestic, Cats, Clinical Trials as Topic, Dogs, Female, Health Status, Humans, Male, Myocardial Infarction, Prospective Studies, Social Support
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