Research by members of Mississippi State University helps veterinarians help clients make pet decisions.

Published this month in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, a study by two faculty members from Mississippi State University detailed a newly designed tool designed to help veterinarians communicate with customers to make medical decisions for pets.

Jesse G. Grady, DVM, MS, Clinical Assistant Professor of MSU School of Veterinary Medicine, Holli H. Seitz, MPH, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication Department of the School of Arts and Sciences and Researcher Research Center of the School of Social Sciences co-authored this article, "in When making medical decisions for pets, measure veterinary clients’ preferences for autonomy and information."

An open access article in the flagship veterinary journal studies the development and testing of a new tool—a reliable questionnaire—that veterinarians can use to assess the extent to which customers want to participate in shared decisions related to pet health and well-being.

"A few years ago, I started working with veterinarian Jesse Grady on communication research in the context of veterinary medicine. We realized that customers’ preferences for information and autonomy were not measured in the veterinary literature, so our first task was to adjust and test new instruments. ," Seitz said. "We hope that veterinarians can use this new survey tool or questionnaire to learn more about customer preferences, and researchers can use this new survey tool to understand the relationship between customer preferences and their decision-making."

Seitz said she hopes that veterinarians will consider incorporating investigations into the paperwork of new clients to start a conversation about client needs and preferences. "This has the potential to build stronger relationships between veterinarians and their customers, thereby improving the health of pets," Seitz said.

For the full article, please visit this page.

Grady said that the desire of pet owners to control decisions varies from person to person and from situation to situation. "Our research found that as the pet's condition worsens, pet owners want to reduce their control over clinical decision-making, and instead follow the veterinarian's recommendations," Grady said. "However, decision-making is a rather complex process, and this tool will allow us to study this process more deeply in future research.

"I am very happy to publish this collaborative study in the flagship veterinary journal," Grady said.

As part of the MSU School of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Communication can be found at www.comm.msstate.edu. For information about the School of Veterinary Medicine, please visit www.cvm.msstate.edu. MSU is the leading university in Mississippi and is available online at www.msstate.edu. 

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