Impact of Human-Animal Interactions on Psychological and Physiological Factors Associated With Veterinary School Students and Donkeys.

There has been an increased interest in evaluating human-animal interactions and assessing the mutual health and wellbeing. In this study, first-year female and male veterinary school students not paired ( = 58) or paired ( = 25) with immature (≤9 mo) donkeys ( = 13) were engaged in three different types of interactions (1st, hands-off remote learning, 2nd, hands-on passive learning, and 3rd, hands-on active learning) for 30 min each during Week 2 (Time 1), Weeks 5-8 (Time 2), and Week 12 (Time 3) over three, 15-week periods. Student psychological data involved the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) scores collected from the interactive (student-donkey pairs) and non-interactive (no student-donkey pairs) groups and modified Comfort from Companion Animals Scale (CCAS) scores collected from the interactive group during Times 1, 2, and 3.