Creating space to build emotional resilience in the animal research community

Tremoleda, Jordi L.; Kerton, Angela

doi:10.1038/s41684-020-0637-7

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the same way, the relationship between laboratory animals and those who work with them has an overwhelming impact on emotional health. This emotional impact is exacerbated by the responsibilities of working with other sentient beings and how best to ensure their wellbeing following interventions that can cause certain degrees of harm or distress [ 9 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional Quality of Life in Research Involving Laboratory Animals

Goñi‐Balentziaga

Vila

Ortega-Saez

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many workers contribute to the success of animal welfare and study outcomes in biomedical research. However, the professional quality of life (ProQoL) of those who work with laboratory animals has not been explored in Spain. To this end, we adapted the ProQoL scale to the Spanish population working with laboratory animals. Participants were contacted by email and asked to complete an anonymous on-line questionnaire. The study comprised a total of 498 participants, 12.4% welfare officers/veterinarians, 19.5% caretaker/technicians, 13.9% principal investigators, 20.7% investigators, 13.6% research technicians, and 19.9% PhD students. The adapted scale revealed very good reliability and internal validity, providing information about two different subscales, compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. Animal-facility personnel showed higher total ProQoL and compassion-satisfaction scores than researchers; PhD students showed the lowest scores. Thus, our results indicate that job category is a contributing factor in perceived professional quality of life. We observed that compassion satisfaction is negatively associated with the perceived animal stress/pain. Participants reporting poorer compassion satisfaction also reported lower social-support scores. Overall, our ProQoL scale is a useful tool for analyzing the professional quality of life in the Spanish population, and may help to design future interventions to improve workplace wellbeing in Spain and other Spanish-speaking populations.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional Quality of Life in Research Involving Laboratory Animals

Goñi‐Balentziaga

Vila

Ortega-Saez

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the same way, the interaction with laboratory animals has an overwhelming impact on the emotional health of the staff. This emotional impact is exacerbated by the responsibilities of working with other sentient beings and determining how best to ensure their wellbeing, particularly following interventions that cause a certain degree of harm or distress [20]. A recent study showed that the professional quality of life of laboratory animal personnel is associated with animal stress/pain, enrichment diversity/frequency, euthanasia method and control, and social support [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working with laboratory rodents in Spain: a survey on welfare and wellbeing

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Replacement, reduction and refinement, the 3R principles, provide a framework to minimize the use and suffering of animals in science. In this context, we aimed to determine the actual perception that individuals working with laboratory rodents in biomedical research have on animal welfare and on their interaction with the animals, as well as how they perceive its impact on their social relations. To this end, we designed an anonymous on-line survey for people working with rodents, at three responsibility levels, in Spain. Results Of the 356 participants, 239 were women (67 %); 263 were researchers (74 %), and 93 animal facility staff (26 %), of which 55 were caretakers/technicians (15 %), and 38 welfare officer/veterinarians (11 %). Animal facility staff indicated environmental enrichment to be a universal practice. About half of the participants reported that, in their opinion, animals suffer “little to none” or “minor” stress and pain. Animal caretakers/technicians and researchers perceived higher levels of stress and pain than welfare officers/veterinarians. Participants judged decapitation the most unpleasant method to kill rodents, whereas anaesthetic overdose was the least one. A sizable proportion − 21 % of animal caretakers/technicians and 11.4 % of researchers - stated that they were never given the choice not to euthanize the rodents they work with. Overall, women reported higher interactions with animals than men. Nevertheless, we could detect a significant correlation between time spent with the animals and interaction scores. Notably, 80 % of animal facility staff and 92 % of researchers rarely talked about their work with laboratory rodents with people outside their inner social circle. Conclusions Overall, the participants showed high awareness and sensitivity to rodent wellbeing; animal facility staff reported a similar perception on welfare questions, independently of their category, while researchers, who spent less time with the animals, showed less awareness and manifested lower human-animal interaction and less social support. Regarding the perception on social acceptance of laboratory animal work, all groups were cautious and rarely talked about their job, suggesting that it is considered a sensitive issue in Spain.

show abstract

“…However, current standards do mean AECs should have regard for AUB, because this may make laboratory animal personnel less able to maintain high animal welfare standards, 12 and some iii However, we accept that AUB may be implicit in some aspects of ethical review. For example, the American Veterinary Medical Association includes aspects of AUB in their assessment of techniques covered in their 'Euthanasia Guidelines'.…”

Section: Role For Aecsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…11 These refer to an array of harms to animal laboratory personnel associated with physical and emotional distress that can also impact the quality of care and welfare attention given to animals. 12 There is some disagreement about the nature of compassion fatigue, and some have argued it is a misnomer, that in fact it is empathy, not compassion, that can lead to the burn-out and other associated harms that are observed. 13 For our purposes, we are concerned about the overall negative welfare impact on laboratory animal personnel arising from harming animals used in research, and the factors that influence their occurrence and extent.…”

Section: Welfare Impact Of Harming Animals In Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, current standards do mean AECs should have regard for AUB, because this may make laboratory animal personnel less able to maintain high animal welfare standards, 12 and some refinements to mitigate AUB are also refinements to promote animal welfare (eg, environmental enrichment). Therefore, AUB is indirectly relevant for protecting animal welfare, which is a key aim of AECs under their current standards.…”

Section: Role For Aecsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Animal researchers shoulder a psychological burden that animal ethics committees ought to address

King

Zohny

2021

J Med Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Animal ethics committees (AECs) typically focus on the welfare of animals used in experiments, neglecting the potential welfare impact of that animal use on the animal laboratory personnel. Some of this work, particularly the killing of animals, can impose significant psychological burdens that can diminish the well-being of laboratory animal personnel, as well as their capacity to care for animals. We propose that AECs, which regulate animal research in part on the basis of reducing harm, can and ought to require that these harms to researchers are reduced as well. The paper starts by presenting evidence of these burdens and their harm, giving some examples showing how they may be mitigated. We then argue that AECs are well placed to account for these harms to personnel and ought to use their power to reduce their occurrence. We conclude by responding to four potential objections: (1) that this problem should be addressed through health and safety administration, not research ethics administration; (2) that the proposal is unjustifiably paternalistic; (3) that these harms to laboratory animal personnel ought to occur, given their treatment of animals; and (4) that mitigating them may lead to worse treatment of research animals.

show abstract

Creating space to build emotional resilience in the animal research community

Cited by 15 publications

References 7 publications

Professional Quality of Life in Research Involving Laboratory Animals

Professional Quality of Life in Research Involving Laboratory Animals

Working with laboratory rodents in Spain: a survey on welfare and wellbeing

Animal researchers shoulder a psychological burden that animal ethics committees ought to address

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About