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Pain is a primary reason individuals attend an Emergency Department (ED), and its management is a concern.

Change in symptoms and physiologic variables at 3 time points pre-post a ten-minute St. John Ambulance therapy dog team visit compared to no visit in ED patients who experienced pain.

Using a controlled clinical trial design, pain, anxiety, depression and well-being were measured with the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (revised version) (ESAS-r) 11-point rating scales before, immediately after, and 20 minutes post- therapy dog team visit with Royal University Hospital ED patients participating in the study (n = 97). Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded at the time points. Control data was gathered twice (30 minutes apart) for comparison (n = 101). There were no group differences in age, gender or ethnicity among the control and intervention groups (respectively mean age 59.5/57.2, ethnicity 77.2% Caucasian/87.6%, female 43.6% /39.2%, male 56.4%/60.8%,).

10 minute therapy dog team visit in addition to usual care.

Change in reported pain from pre and post therapy dog team visit and comparison with a control group.

A two-way ANOVA was conducted to compare group effects. Significant pre- post-intervention differences were noted in pain for the intervention (mean change^int. = -0.9, SD = 2.05, p = .004, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.42, 1.32], η_p² = 04) but not the control group. Anxiety (mean change^int. = -1.13, SD = 2.80, p = .005, 95% CI = [0.56, 1.64], η_p² = .04), depression (mean change^int. = -0.72, SD …