Companion Animals and Procedural Safety in Home Hospice: A Multisite Clinician Survey

BackgroundCompanion animals are common in home hospice and widely viewed as beneficial for patients, yet their presence may affect procedural safety and clinicians' bedside decisions.ObjectivesTo determine whether hospice staff's recognition of pet-related risks predicts their likelihood of requesting temporary separation of the animal during clinical procedures.DesignMulticenter cross-sectional survey.Setting/SubjectsHome hospice clinicians working in three Polish provinces.MeasurementsAn anonymized online questionnaire assessed perceived benefits, risks/burdens, and procedure-related behaviors in homes with patient-owned companion animals. Likert-type items were used to construct composite benefit and risk/burden indices. The primary outcome was clinicians' self-reported propensity to request temporary pet separation during procedures. Ordinal logistic regression adjusted for clinician characteristics was performed.ResultsAmong 81 participating professionals (74% nurses), 98.8% agreed that pets reduced patient anxiety, yet 25.9% reported prior pet-related safety threats and more than half reported requesting temporary separation at least sometimes. Higher recognition of pet-related risk was independently associated with a greater likelihood of requesting separation (odds ratio 2.52 per 1-point increase in risk/burden score; 95% CI 1.38-4.60). General attitudes toward pets and pet ownership were not associated with this behavior.ConclusionsIn home hospice, clinicians' requests for brief pet separation during procedures are driven by professional assessment of bedside risk rather than personal affinity for animals or beliefs about pet benefits. These findings support temporary, situation-specific separation as a pragmatic patient-safety measure and highlight the need for guidance on managing companion animals during home visits.