The effects of dog-owning on students’ levels of stress and loneliness

The effects of dog-owning on students’ levels of stress and loneliness was tested using a two way between-groups ANOVA and Mann-Whitney U test. A two-way between groups ANOVA was conducted to discover the impact of dog-owning on stress and gender. Data for the loneliness variable were not normally distributed, a Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to discover the influence of gender and dog-owning on loneliness. The current study aimed to find interactions between dog-owning and stress, dog-owning and loneliness and to which gender is there a greater influence. One hundred and forty-two participants were recruited through convenient sampling by an online survey posted to popular social media sites. Participants age ranged between 18-27, one hundred and nine females and thirty-two males. Results conclude that there was a significant difference between males and females on the outcome of stress but there was no difference between dog-owning and non-dog-owning. There was also no interaction between gender and dog-owning. There were also no statistically significant results found on the impact of dog-owning on the loneliness levels of the student population. Implications include a small sample size and for future studies a larger sample size including a more vulnerable population would be recommended. Keywords: dog-owning, students, stress, loneliness, gende