by Beyond all the trends and fads, nutrition is the most important goal of the dog, cat and other pet food industries. Pet owners, veterinarians and pet food manufacturers aim to ensure that companion animals eat complete and balanced diets. However, communication among these groups can be complicated. For example, veterinarians and pet owners may differ in their assessments of pet obesity. Veterinarian recommendations can play an important role for pet owners looking for ideal diets for their companion animals. However, four main barriers can hinder communication about nutrition among pet owners and veterinarians. Researchers identified their challenges in a study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
For the study, 18 veterinarians from Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia participated in five study groups conducted via Zoom in 2021. Four main barriers to nutrition communication emerged.
1. Time
Vets had limited amounts of time to spend with each pet owner. During that time, they usually had a particular problem to deal with, leaving little time to discuss the general topic of nutrition.
“Furthermore, some participants also suggested that they had difficulty making time for outside nutrition research and education,” the researchers wrote.
2. Misinformation and information overload
Like the recent TikTok rumor about Purina PetCare products, the internet can provide pet owners with more misinformation than facts. Vets in the study felt it was easier for pet owners to access disreputable sites and untrustworthy online resources. Adding to the problem, those websites can be more appealing to clients than those with actual scientific data and veterinary backing.
“Any search on pet nutrition yielded pages of blogs, websites and other platforms where participants indicated that non-professionals could offer their opinions and advice,” the researchers wrote.
3. Pet owners’ anxiety about new information
Even when veterinarians had time to talk to pet owners about nutrition, these sources of misinformation turned clients against empirical information and medical opinion. The barriers to communication with pet owners were multifaceted. Study participants described how pet owners often come in with preconceived notions about nutrition (mainly from misinformation found online and from outside sources such as breeders and pet store employees). Sometimes pet owners didn’t believe their pet’s weight was a health issue. Clients tended to see the owner as the expert on their pet’s health, and vets were either untrained in pet nutrition or biased by sponsorships from pet food companies.
4. Trust the vets for nutrition knowledge and communication skills
In some cases, veterinarians agreed with pet owners that their university education did not focus on nutrition and its effects on health. Even those vets who felt they were well educated about nutrition, did not think they were sufficiently educated on how to communicate that nutrition information to pet owners.
“Regardless of instructional levels, participants overall agreed that they had low confidence when talking to clients about nutrition,” the study authors wrote. “Practitioners have said they have struggled to convince owners that vet-recommended foods are valuable because there is a lack of credible resources to support their recommendations. Participants indicated that this is especially true when clinicians are trying to recommend a change in the diet of healthy animals.”
Solutions to pet owner communication barriers
As well as noting problems, the study groups also discussed possible solutions. Vets recommended improving communication and nutrition education at the university and post-graduate level. For pet owners, vets asked for more content written in easy to read and understand language. Many participants in the study had collected their own resources to share with clients during visits and to take home with them. Along with the vets themselves, technicians and support staff should be empowered to lead conversations with pet owners, as long as the message is consistent.
“There is likely to be a need to explore and develop best practices on how nutrition can be effectively incorporated into the real world of a busy veterinary practice to support the efforts of the veterinary profession to incorporate nutrition into most consultations, ” said the authors of the study. “Further research is needed with veterinarians, veterinary technicians, veterinary support staff, and pet owners to create effective solutions that will help break down barriers to nutritional communication in veterinary medicine.”
