[Survey of consciousness of community residents regarding the community life of disabled persons with service dogs].

Purpose: Service dogs have received much attention as effective choices for promoting participation in society of disabled persons. The purpose of this study was to obtain the fundamental data to prepare guidelines regarding service dogs use in community life, by making clear the problems in terms of public health and community welfare through a survey of attitudes towards service dogs in community residents.

Methods: Study 1 was conducted as follows. The subjects were 423 community residents between their teens and seventies who participated in health and welfare lectures in 4 metropolitan areas. A questionnaire survey was conducted just after watching a promotion video about service dogs, including several items on aspects not accept, were anxious about or were unpleasant in the case of community life of a disabled person and a service dog. Study 2 was as follows. A questionnaire survey was conducted inside a supermarket in the central part of Tokyo. One group of subjects were 103 shopping customers who witnessed a shopping scene featuring a disabled person with her service dog, and the other subjects were 84 customers who were not witnessed to the scene. The same survey was simultaneously performed for impression about the shopping scene.

Results: Study 1 showed that 31.8% of all the respondents replied that they had some knowledge of service dogs before watching the video. A total of 20.4% (32.5% of the elderly) replied that there were places where service dogs should not enter. Concretely speaking, these included restaurants for 7.3-22.5% and medical institutions for 8.5-12.5% of the respondents. A third of all the respondents (51.3% of older persons) replied they could not endure some actions by service dogs, concretely "carrying food in the mouth" was highly pointed out by 27.3%. Zoonosis (15.3-19.0%), hair scattering (9.5-21.3%), injuries (4.4-7.4%) were also pointed out as main sources of anxiety or uncomfortable feelings. Such negative opinions were especially apparent among those aged 60 years and older. Also, 44.1% knew some disabled person. Cross tabulation showed those who had experience of taking care of a dog were significant less anxious about "vague anxiety or discomfort," and "zoonosis" than those who had not (P < 0.01). On the other hand, most of both witness (79.6%), and non-witness groups (81.0%) replied that it was heartwarming that the service dog assisted with shopping. None expressed discomfort about the presence of "service dog" inside the supermarket. In terms of carrying a commodity in the mouth, 92.2% and 89.1% in both groups replied that they don't mind, especially if safety was guaranteed for public health, and 91.3% and 95.2% in both groups replied that they had no other problems. Moreover, none of them would not entering stores. Significant differences were seldom in replies between the witness and non-witness groups.

Conclusion: Although the respondents were extremely affirmative regarding the image of service dogs, it became clear that anxiety about public health aspects such as "zoonosis" or "utilization of medical institutions" was persisting. On the whole, negative opinions were more apparent in the elderly.