Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been largely attributed to antimicrobial use (AMU). To achieve judicious AMU, much research and many policies focus on knowledge translation and behavioral change mechanisms. To address knowledge gaps in contextual drivers of decisions made by dairy farmers concerning AMU, we conducted ethnographic fieldwork to investigate one community's understanding of AMU, AMR, and associated regulations in the dairy industry in Alberta, Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPublic health measures (PHMs) proactively and reactively reduce the spread of disease. While these measures target individual behaviour, they require broad adherence to be effective. Consequently, the World Health Organization issued a special appeal to young adults, a known non-adherent population, for increased adherence with COVID-19 guidelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcross Canada and internationally, laws exist to protect animals and to stop them from becoming public nuisances and threats. The work of officers who enforce local bylaws protects both domestic animals and humans. Despite the importance of this work, research in this area is emergent, but growing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLameness in dairy cattle poses both an animal welfare and economic threat to dairy farms. Although the Canadian dairy industry has identified lameness as the most important health issue, lameness prevalence in the province of Alberta has not decreased over the last decade. Factors related to lameness have been reported, but the prevalence remains high.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn food animal production medicine (FAPM), the success of control programs for infectious diseases that have serious animal health and economic consequences frequently rely on the veterinarian's effective communication and producer adherence to veterinary recommendations. However, little research has been conducted on communication skills of practicing FAPM veterinarians. During this study, we developed a communication training workshop intervention to support the Atlantic Johne's Disease Initiative.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article features a partnership between a veterinary school and a charity that aims to enhance the wellbeing of low-income people. Through this partnership, the charity periodically hosts veterinary clinics for clients and their pets. Even as the veterinarians and veterinary students duly examine people's pets, these pop-up clinics aim to help people and their pets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To describe client and veterinarian perceptions of client-centeredness during euthanasia discussions and assess agreement between measures of these perceptions.
Design: Descriptive study.
Sample: Stratified random sample of 32 companion animal veterinarians in southern Ontario.
Herd health and production consultancy are important aspects of the modern dairy veterinary practice; therefore, veterinary farm visits will likely be more successful if veterinary practitioners communicate effectively and meet farmers' expectations. Objectives were to assess dairy farmers' satisfaction with veterinary advisors and their perceived preparedness to adopt veterinary advice. Furthermore, we assessed whether farmers' satisfaction and preparedness to adopt advice were associated with specific predictor variables; that is, general (demographic) factors of veterinarians or farmers, communication tools used by veterinarians, and veterinarians' affective attributes during the farm visit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffective communication with clients is an important skill for veterinary practitioners and is linked to clients' satisfaction with the consultancy and adherence to medical advice. Detailed description of veterinary communication styles in companion animal contexts has added to the communication knowledge base and informed veterinary curricula and postgraduate education programs. The objective here was to describe veterinary practitioners' communication patterns during dairy herd health and production management farm visits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFABSTRACTThe objective of this study was to assess whether pet ownership contributes to social participation and life satisfaction for older adults. We used baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) for this purpose, and logistic regression models to estimate associations between social participation and life satisfaction for pet owners and non-owners. One third of all older adults (≥ 65 years, n = 7,474) in our sample reported pet ownership.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrevious research has shown that housing insecurity contributes to animal relinquishment and that tenants with dogs face disadvantages in the rental market. Still, little is known about how dog owners navigate rental markets, nor how landlords and property managers perceive dogs and other pets. This case study reports on in-depth interviews with younger tenants with dogs and on open-ended survey responses from landlords and property managers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNutritional changes recommended by veterinarians to clients can have a major role in animal-patient health. Although there is literature on best practices that can inform veterinary communication training, little is known specifically about how veterinarians communicate their recommendations to clients in real-life interactions. This study used the qualitative research method of conversation analysis to investigate the form and content of veterinarian-initiated proposals for long-term dietary change in canine and feline patients to further inform veterinary communication training.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHerd health and production management (HH&PM) are critical aspects of production animal veterinary practice; therefore, dairy veterinarians need to effectively deliver these services. However, limited research that can inform veterinary education has been conducted to characterise these farm visits. The aim of the present study was to assess the applicability of action cameras (eg, GoPro cameras) worn by veterinarians to provide on-farm recordings, and the suitability of these recordings for comprehensive communication analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFeline obesity has become a common disease and important animal welfare issue. Little is known about how, or how often, veterinarians and feline-owning clients are addressing obesity during clinical appointments. The purpose of this qualitative study was to characterize verbal and non-verbal communication between veterinarians and clients regarding feline obesity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe prevention and control of endemic pathogens within and between farms often depends on the adoption of best management practices. However, farmers regularly do not adopt recommended measures or do not enroll in voluntary disease control programs. This indicates that a more comprehensive understanding of the influences and extension tools that affect farmers' management decisions is necessary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this qualitative study was to compare veterinarians' and Registered Veterinary Technicians' (RVT's) perceptions of the veterinary healthcare team with respect to the impact of toxic attitudes and a toxic environment. Focus group interviews using a semi-structured interview guide and follow up probes were held with four veterinarian groups (23 companion animal veterinarians) and four Registered Veterinary Technician groups (26 RVTs). Thematic analysis of the discussions indicated both veterinarian and RVT participants felt team members with manifestations of toxic attitudes negatively impacted veterinary team function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is increasing pressure in veterinary education to teach and assess communication skills, with the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) being the most common assessment method. Previous research reveals that raters are a large source of variance in OSCEs. This study focused on examining the effect of raters' professional background as a source of variance when assessing students' communication skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To establish the types of initial questions used by veterinarians in companion animal practice to solicit nutritional history information from owners of dogs and cats, the dietary information elicited, and the relationship between initial question-answer sequences and later nutrition-related questions.
Design: Cross-sectional qualitative conversation analytic study.
Sample: 98 appointments featuring 15 veterinarians drawn from an observational study of 284 videotaped veterinarian-client-patient visits involving 17 veterinarians in companion animal practices in eastern Ontario, Canada.
Objective: To determine the role of veterinary team effectiveness regarding job satisfaction and burnout in companion animal veterinary practice.
Design: Cross-sectional observational study.
Sample: 48 companion animal veterinary health-care teams.
Drawing on the One Health concept, and integrating a dual focus on public policy and practices of caring from the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, we outline a conceptual framework to help guide the development and assessment of local governments' policies on pets. This framework emphasizes well-being in human populations, while recognizing that these outcomes relate to the well-being of non-human animals. Five intersecting spheres of activity, each associated with local governments' jurisdiction over pets, are presented: (i) preventing threats and nuisances from pets, (ii) meeting pets' emotional and physical needs, (iii) procuring pets ethically, (iv) providing pets with veterinary services and (v) licensing and identifying pets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe determined the Web-based configurations that are applied to teach medical and veterinary communication skills, evaluated their effectiveness, and suggested future educational directions for Web-based communication teaching in veterinary education. We performed a systematic search of CAB Abstracts, MEDLINE, Scopus, and ERIC limited to articles published in English between 2000 and 2012. The review focused on medical or veterinary undergraduate to clinical- or residency-level students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent teaching approaches in human and veterinary medicine across North America, Europe, and Australia include lectures, group discussions, feedback, role-play, and web-based training. Increasing class sizes, changing learning preferences, and economic and logistical challenges are influencing the design and delivery of communication skills in veterinary undergraduate education. The study's objectives were to (1) assess the effectiveness of small-group and web-based methods for teaching communication skills and (2) identify which training method is more effective in helping students to develop communication skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunication skills are considered to be a core clinical skill in veterinary medicine and essential for practice success, including outcomes of care for patients and clients. While veterinary schools include communication skills training in their programs, there is minimal knowledge on how best to assess communication competence throughout the undergraduate program. The purpose of this study was to further our understanding of the reliability, utility, and suitability of a communication skills Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunication is a critical clinical skill closely linked to clinical reasoning, medical problem solving, and significant outcomes of care such as accuracy, efficiency, supportiveness, adherence to treatment plans, and client and veterinarian satisfaction. More than 40 years of research on communication and communication education in human medicine and, more recently, in veterinary medicine provide a substantive rationale for formal communication teaching in veterinary education. As a result, veterinary schools are beginning to invest in communication training.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To describe the relationship between veterinarian and client genders and veterinarian-client-patient communication.
Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.
Sample: Random sample of 50 companion animal practitioners in southern Ontario and a convenience sample of 300 clients and their pets.