Objective: We determined the proportion of pet owners and non-pet owners with serious mental illness, compared their characteristics and their motivations for owning or not owning a pet, and examined the relationship between pet ownership and engagement in meaningful activity and three dimensions of community integration.
Method: Three Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams reported on the pet ownership of all service recipients (N = 204). Of these recipients, 60 completed a survey. Nonparametric tests were selected for data analysis.
Results: Of 204 ACT clients, 38 (18.6%) were pet owners. Twenty-tour (63.2%) of 38 responding non-pet owners desired to live with a pet. There were significant differences between groups on diagnosis, gender, a global measure of function, meaningful activity, and psychological integration.
Conclusion: The key finding supports the hypothesis that pet owners with serious mental illness living in the community demonstrate higher social community integration. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.