Table 3.

Crude and adjusted¹ estimated median (95% Bayesian Credible Intervals; BCI) of the effect of pet ownership * on quality of life utility score, overall health score, and loneliness score using cross-sectional data from a survey of 1500 Canadian (14 April to 5 May 2021).

	Univariable Models			Multivariable Models 1
	Estimate	95% BCI	ESS 2	Estimate	95% BCI	ESS 2
Quality of life	−0.03	−0.05; −0.02	3679	−0.01	−0.02; 0.01	4626
Overall health	−2.0	−3.2; −0.7	4098	−1.2	−2.5; 0.1	4723
Loneliness	0.31	0.11; 0.51	4496	−0.10	−0.30; 0.09	5060

* Reference: non-pet owners. ¹ Bayesian gaussian linear regression models including geographical region as a random-effect intercept. The multivariable model included the minimal sufficient adjustment set for estimating the total effect of pet ownership (age, gender, highest level of education, ethnicity, annual household income, social support, disability, current mental health change, pet change in the previous year, number of people in the household, and pet attitude score). ² Estimation of the effective sample size (number of independent samples from the posterior distribution that would be expected to yield the same standard error of the posterior mean).