Veterinary students' preferences for responding to clients who are having a difficult time coping with the illness, treatment, or death of a companion animal

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in the ways in which veterinary students prefer to respond to clients who are having a difficult time coping with some aspect of their pet's care. Response preferences were measured across eight student attributes including (a) age, (b) gender, (c) level of education, (d) pet ownership, (e) having ever had a pet that died, (f) having ever been present during the euthanasia of a client's pet, (g) hours of coursework in client communications, and (h) area of specialty interest.;A "bogus profile" research technique was used in this study. Respondents were presented with five scenarios which depicted veterinary clinic visits in which clients expressed emotions concerning their pets. Respondents were asked to rate on a scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely), how likely they would be to make each of the four response choices. Factorial analyses of variance were employed to analyze the data.;Statistically significant differences were found for four of the eight student attributes. Differences in gender, level of education, hours of coursework in client communications, and specialty interest all impacted the types of responses the veterinary students preferred to give their clients. Females' means for feeling and referral responses were significantly higher than the corresponding means for males. The means for juniors and seniors were significantly higher than the mean for sophomores for the feeling response, and the mean for freshmen for the minimizing response was significantly higher than the minimizing response means for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The minimizing response mean for students with no previous coursework in client communications was significantly higher than the mean for students having over ten hours of coursework. The technical mean for students with no specialty interest at this time and for those interested in specializing in small animal practices was higher than the corresponding means for students interested in large animal practices. The results of this study indicated that certain student attributes did affect veterinary students' preferences for responding to emotional clients.