How much information do pet owners recall after a veterinary consultation?

Abstract

Communication between veterinarians and pet owners is necessary to ensure a good relationship, optimize owner compliance (for instance in medication regime) and of course to give pets the best care possible. In human medicine it is known that medical information is not always recalled completely or correctly by patients or patient caregivers (pediatric medicine). This can lead to serious mistakes being made in for instance the use of medication or fasting before surgery. In veterinary medicine, the information is very limited and thus there is a lot of room for possible improvement. The aim of this study is to examine: 1) how much information is remembered by pet owners from a veterinary consultation (at the University clinic for companion animals, department of oncology), 2) which information is most likely to be memorized 3) and what variables (pet attachment, education, gender, age, living situation) could be the cause of errors in memory. Unfortunately due to lack of new patients this question remains unanswered until we can obtain more data in the future. We also investigated wheter there is a difference in attachment between visitors of oncology and other departments and pet owners not visiting the University Clinic for Companion Animals in Utrecht(UKG). We found no significant difference for visitors for different departments but we did find a significant difference in pet attachment between UKG visitors (N=102, M=70.75, SD=8.45) and non-UKG visitors (N=100, M=67.57, SD=9.41) that can account for 3.1% of the differences in total LAPS score. The internet survey data showed a significan difference in attachment between men (N=34, M = 64.44, SD = 7.30) and women (N=66, M = 69.18, SD = 10.01) which can account for 6.9% of the differences in LAPS score. This was not the case for any of the UKG visitor survey data or the other characteristics of our internet survey participants (age, education, occupation, household, dog/cat owners, age pet or pet ownership since pup/kitten or at an older age).