WASHINGTON — The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a final report today reviewing the second draft of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) monograph, A Randomized Trial of Differential Effectiveness of Service Dog Pairing Versus Emotional Support Dog Pairing to Improve Quality of Life for Veterans With PTSD, which assesses the potential therapeutic effects of programs with trained service dogs and emotional support dogs on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The committee that wrote the report was tasked with conducting an iterative review of the VA’s monograph to evaluate its consistency with accepted scientific principles.

The final report commends the VA on improvements to its first draft monograph, made in response to the committee’s first report, which was shared with the VA in 2020. The committee’s final report also notes some concerns to be addressed in the second draft of the monograph:

• When describing the results of the study, more effort should be made to align the use of causal language with those that are supportable by the study design, noting that imprecise language can lead to differences in interpretation among lay audiences and scientific readers.

• The VA should focus on the intent-to-treat analysis of all outcome measures.

• Complete reporting of all items listed in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CSRT) 2010 — such as de-identified participant data and code used for statistical analysis — will help ensure that the monograph contains the minimal information needed to fully understand the clinical trial and its findings. Complete reporting of CSRT is standard for clinical trials.

• The interpretation of the results should do more to clarify that changes reported in PTSD symptoms among veterans participating in the study could be the result of ongoing PTSD treatment unrelated to the study intervention (i.e., service and emotional support dog programs).

The VA released its final monograph, the third iteration, yesterday. The committee’s first report, which reviewed the first draft of the monograph, is also now publicly available.

The study — undertaken by the Committee on Review of Department of Veterans Affairs Monograph on Potential Therapeutic Effects of Service and Emotional Support Dogs on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.

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Megan Lowry, Media Officer
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