Service Dog Schools for PTSD as a Tertiary Prevention Modality: Assessment Based on Assistance Dogs

Psychiatric service dogs compensate in terms of social and physical cognition for people who suffer from chronic post-traumatic stress, reassuring them with their canine behavior in public places, at home and in relationships interpersonal skills with strangers. There are no certification and standards for schools that train service dogs in Canada and the United States. Does the fact that training is different from one school to another have an impact on the effectiveness of the assistance dog for his master? To identify all aspects that closely reflect tertiary prevention, this exploratory case study documents the processes and services supporting the assignment of service dogs to veterans with PTSD and the subsequent follow-up conducted at various dog training schools; and it evaluates and compares the processes and services in place. The case study included four data collection methods involving 31 veterans, 7 school delegates, 7 trainers and 23 dogs. Qualitative content analysis and all the information collected was rated according to the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and Assistance Dogs International (ADI) criteria. Results indicated a TDF-scoring across 12 domains ranged from 6/24 to 16/24. The schools moderately reflected ADI-standards. Tertiary prevention recommendations were proposed for dog trainers to better address the domains that needed improving at the time of the study (knowledge about PTSD, beliefs about capabilities, behavioral regulation, environmental context and resources, beliefs about consequences, nature of behaviors).