Human-animal relationship and mental health in the Covid-19 pandemic: an integrative review
Abstract
The human-animal relationship is historical and contributed to the development of societies. With domestication, animals became companions (pets) integrating families. Their function advanced to therapeutic issues and in the Covid-19 pandemic they played roles in socio-emotional regulation. The objective of this work was to carry out an integrative review on the human-animal relationship and mental health in the Covid-19 pandemic. To this end, scientific articles were searched in five databases, using keywords that were combined with the Boolean operator ‘and’. The selection followed PRISMA recommendations and the analysis was qualitative descriptive. A total of 2310 studies were found and 11 were included in the integrative analysis. Most research was cross-sectional with the application of varied instruments, with a predominance of mixed data collection methods (quali-quantitative) and with relatively large samples. The United States had greater representation in terms of production, with the most recurring theme being the impact of the pandemic on the elderly and loneliness. It was concluded that there is potential to suggest that the human-animal relationship was beneficial for the mental health of people during the Covid-19 pandemic. The topic is of clinical and sociocultural relevance, but it is not yet possible to establish scientific evidence.
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