The article titled “Prevalence of zoonotic agents in dogs visiting hospitalized people in Ontario: implications for infection control” is a scientific study that takes a critical look at the issue of the risks of allowing companion animals to visit individuals in a hospital environment. As the article notes, this practice has become increasingly popular for its possible benefits which include “distraction of participants from pain and loneliness, reduced anxiety and depression, and increased patient physical and social activity” (Lefebvre et al, 2006, pg. 459). Below, I will provide a summary of the findings.
As mentioned earlier, the authors were specifically looking for the possible risks of transmission of infection from the dogs to the patients. The pathogens that this study considered included Clostridium difficile, Salmonella spp, and multidrug resistant bacteria such as MRSA, among many others. As noted by the authors, the three objectives of this study were to “to determine the prevalence of selected potential zoonotic pathogens among dogs enrolled in human hospital visitation programmes; (2) to provide evidence-based data for developing appropriate health surveillance protocols and infection control policies for such programmes; and (3) to provide preliminary data for future studies” (Lefebvre et al, 2006, pg. 459). The researchers took a survey of all Ontario hospitals and determined which ones allowed companion dogs. Once these hospitals were identified, the researchers sought the participation of these agencies and selected dogs considered actively visiting dogs which they defined as “having visited a hospital within the last month and being scheduled to visit at least once in the future” (Lefebvre et al, 2006, pg. 459). In this study, 102 dogs deemed to be healthy were chosen and various biological swabs were taken and analyzed accordingly.
What the researchers found was that “The most common organism detected was C. difficile (58%),...