Date of Project

4-7-2026

Document Type

Honors Thesis

School Name

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Major Advisor

Dr. Keim

Abstract

While there are many professions that are stressful enough to be linked with negative mental health outcomes, few measure up to the mental dangers of veterinary medicine, with suicide rates twice that of the dental and medical professions and four times that of the general population (Stoewen, 2015). The current study aimed to focus on veterinarians and their mental health. While there have been a few studies done about the veterinary workplace, none thus far have investigated how veterinarians are spending their leisure time outside of work and how it could be impacting their mental health. The current study was a survey-based study sent out to veterinarians that did just that. It asked which leisure activities vets were doing and how much time per week they spent doing it, while comparing those to perceived happiness on a subjective happiness scale and resilience on the Brief Resilience Scale. It was hypothesized that an increase in total leisure time would be associated with an increase in mental health outcomes and that an increase in time spent exercising would increase veterinary mental health outcomes. The results of the experiment, with of sample size of n = 29 veterinarians, revealed that the first hypothesis was false, with total leisure time not being significantly positively correlated with happiness or resilience. The second hypothesis was partially correct, with a significant positive correlation only between exercise and resilience. Other important results indicated that there was a significantly positive correlation between outdoor time and both resilience and happiness, and there was a significantly negative correlation between internet scrolling and resilience.

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