Associations between sheep farmer attitudes, beliefs, emotions and personality, and their barriers to uptake of best practice: The example of footrot

Abstract

There is interest in understanding how farmers’ behaviour influences their management of livestock. We extend the theory of planned behaviour with farmers attitudes, beliefs, emotions and personality to investigate how these are associated with management of livestock disease using the example of footrot (FR) in sheep.In May 2013 a one-year retrospective questionnaire was sent to 4000 sheep farmers in England, requesting data on lameness prevalence, management of footrot, farm/flock descriptors, and farmer-orientated themes: barriers to treating footrot, opinions and knowledge of footrot, relating to other people and personality. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to make composite variables from explanatory variables and latent class (LC) analysis was used to subgroup farmers, based on nine managements of FR. Associations between LC and composite variables were investigated using multinomial logistic regression. Negative binomial regression was used to investigate associations between the proportion of lame sheep and composite and personality variables.The useable response rate was 32% and 97% of farmers reported having lame sheep; the geometric mean prevalence of lameness (GMPL) was 3.7% (95% CI 3.51%–3.86%).Participants grouped into three latent classes; LC1 (best practice—treat FR within 3 days of sheep becoming lame; use injectable and topical antibiotics; avoid foot trimming), 11% farmers), LC2 (slow to act, 57%) and LC3 (slow to act, delayed culling, 32%), with GMPL 2.95%, 3.60% and 4.10% respectively.Farmers who reported the production cycle as a barrier to treating sheep with FR were more likely to be in LC2 (RRR 1.36) than LC1. Negative emotions towards FR were associated with higher risk of being in LC2 (RRR 1.39) than LC1. Knowledge of preventing FR spread was associated with a lower risk of being in LC2 (RRR 0.46) or LC3 (RRR 0.34) than LC1. Knowledge about FR transmission was associated with a lower risk of being in LC3 (RRR 0.64) than LC1.An increased risk of lameness was associated with the production cycle being a barrier to treating sheep with FR (IRR 1.13), negative emotions towards FR (IRR 1.13) and feelings of hopelessness towards FR (IRR 1.20). Conscientiousness (IRR 0.95) and understanding the importance of active control of lameness (IRR 0.76) were associated with reduced risk of lameness.We conclude that emotions and personality are associated with differences in farmer management of FR and prevalence of lameness. Further understanding how personality and emotions influence change in behaviour is key to increasing uptake of new information.

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“…A recent study conducted on sheep farmers’ response to foot rot focused on the effects of personality, emotions such as empathy and general attitude on the treatment strategy. The authors found that sheep had an increased risk of lameness when their farmers demonstrated negative emotions and hopelessness toward foot rot, and that farmers’ personality and emotions are associated with their differences in management of foot rot (O’Kane et al, 2016). …”

“…Furthermore, recent research suggests that a deep understanding of the decision making process is needed, as it can explain success or failure of policy interventions (Rat-Aspert and Fourichon, 2010; Garforth, 2015; O’Kane et al, 2016). …”

A comparison of the efficacy of three intervention trial types: postal, group, and one-to-one facilitation, prior management and the impact of message framing and repeat messages on the flock prevalence of lameness in sheep

“…O'Kane et al, 2016) and so the interventions could not lead to further change in behaviour or reduction in prevalence of lameness. Flocks with prevalence of lameness >15% in 2013 were also excluded because such a high prevalence of lameness is indicative of an outbreak of infectious lameness which would not be resolved by adopting the intervention message…”

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“…That treatment, when administered within 3 days of onset of lameness (3,5), is current "best practice" because it minimizes the adverse effects from footrot on the individual sheep (3), reduces repeat cases of disease (7) and onward spread of disease (8). Current "best practice" has been promoted since 2006, and by 2013 11% of English farmers were using the new "best practice" (9).…”

“…This included continuing to trim hoof horn to expose diseased tissue (therapeutic foot trimming) without use of an antibiotic injection to treat footrot. In addition, many farmers did not treat lame sheep within 3 days of onset of lameness, explained in part by farmers not prioritizing lameness all year round and not treating lame sheep at all during the mating season and late pregnancy (9). O'Kane et al (9) proposed that feelings of hopelessness reported by farmers could trigger 1 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/69365/pb5162-sheep-041028.pdf inactivity in managing lameness and create a cycle of selffulfilling behavior, and that farmers' ability to act appropriately toward footrot was predicted in part by their perceived behavioral control, this has been reported for other animal diseases (19,20).…”