Abstract
Anxiety has a long, extensive history dating back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates andhis published works (de Lijster, 2019, p. 9). Anxiety today is one of the most widespread
diagnoses in the United States. In 2018, 3.1% of the Unites States population, or 6.8 million
people, were living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) (ADAA, 2018b, Facts Section,
para. 1). Generalized Anxiety Disorder is specific in that it is more intense and incapacitating
than any other form of anxiety, causing a prolonged and irrational state of fear and worry about
things that happened, that are happening, and/or that could potentially happen (DSM-V, 2013,
p.222). There are many treatment options for GAD including everyday self-care practices,
meditation, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and pharmacotherapy. There is,
however, a growing trend of using animals as a form of therapy for people suffering from mental
illnesses, and more specifically, generalized anxiety disorder. “The use of animals for therapeutic
purposes, although has a long history, has been expanded just in the 20th century” (Koukourikos
et. al., 2019, p. 1898). Emotional support animals (ESA) are animals that are used to help soothe
or comfort an individual that is diagnosed with a mental illness (Fine, 2010, p. 7). This
qualitative and quantitative study examines whether emotional support animals are a more
effective treatment method for treating symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder than traditional
treatment methods like pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. A 16-question survey was
distributed using SurveyMonkey.com to individuals with an anxiety diagnosis. The results of the
survey were examined using the free, open-source software named R. By conducting statistical
tests such as the Chi-Squared Test, it was concluded that emotional support animals are more
effective at treating generalized anxiety disorder when combined with traditional treatment
methods.
