Service Dogs for Veterans With PTSD

IN REPLY: We appreciate and respect the views expressed by Drs. Campbell, Pollack, and Schnurr. We did not intend to represent service dogs as an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); rather, we clearly stated that service dogs for veterans with PTSD are complementary to evidence-based treatments. Apart from PTSD symptoms, as recorded on the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, and medication adherence, this randomized controlled trial yielded no evidence to indicate that service dogs, compared with emotional support dogs, provided superior therapeutic benefits. Drs. Campbell, Pollack, and Schnurr then conclude that service dogs are not a promising strategy. We believe their conclusion is not supported by our trial because they are implicitly suggesting that service dogs are no better than no dog, and our trial did not have a no-dog comparison group for reasons cited in the monographs (see links below). Thus, this trial provides no information on whether service dogs, or emotional support dogs for that matter, are better than other supplements to usual care for PTSD. For those comparisons, further studies would be needed. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue, and we agree that complete reporting is essential to helping the mental health community, service dog organizations, the public, and the U.S. Congress to accurately interpret the findings of the clinical trial. The complete monographs, reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, are publicly available (1, 2).