Finally, information directly related to pain was collected from
the child’s medical record. The specific information gathered
from the chart included the child’s date of birth, the date of
admission to the hospital, the reason for hospital admission, the list
of acute and chronic illnesses indicated in the health history, and
pain history including pain assessment ratings, interventions to
relieve pain, and effectiveness of the pain interventions. This study
protocol did not deny children pharmacologic pain relief measures
prior to, during, or after the intervention. This information was
carefully documented to determine potential relationships between
pharmacologic and the animal-assisted therapy intervention. All
data were collected by trained research assistants. Data were
analyzed using SPSS (16.0).