Afraid of the dog? More stable psyche can save from dog bites

Your own personality influences whether a dog bites or not

According to an English study, anxious people are more likely to bite a dog than people with a more stable psyche. Scientists at the University of Liverpool's Department of Epidemiology have conducted an observational study of the frequency with which people are bitten by dogs and the factors that cause them to bite. Every year, more than 6,500 patients in the UK have to be hospitalized after being bitten by a dog. The researchers suspect, however, a three times higher dark figure.

The researchers surveyed 694 people from 385 households in northern England, where the number of dog bites is highest. In addition to information on how many people were actually bitten by dogs and how many of the resulting injuries were medically treated, the researchers also looked for possible reasons for the bite. Various factors played a role, such as whether the bitten dog knew the dog or whether it was even his own dog. The results were recently published in the journal "Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health".

Men are bitten more often than women

The polls took place in the rural town of Cheshire in England. For each participant, the researchers also determined the type of person with the help of a so-called Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). With this test, certain aspects of the personality, including emotional stability and neuroticism, can be determined. As a result, scientists identified potential traits that could affect the risk of being bitten. One in four respondents said they had been bitten at least once. Men were bitten almost twice as often as women.

High dark figure in dog bites

People who had multiple dogs were bitten more than three times as often as people who did not have dogs. However, 55 percent of respondents said they had been bitten by a dog they did not know.

According to the hospital records, 740 dogs are bitten by 100,000 people. But the survey found a rate of 1873 per 100,000 people. That's almost three times the official figure. Accordingly, only every third dog bite is treated medically. Only a small portion of 0.6 percent of bitten teeth had to be hospitalized.

Anxious or neurotic people are more likely to be bitten

The evaluation of the TIPI test showed a possible link between personality traits and the risk of being bitten. The researchers suspect based on the test results, the higher the risk of being bitten by a dog, the more anxious and neurotic an individual is. However, since this is only an observational study, the researchers warn that no clear general conclusions on this topic are possible.

The results are only for households in the north of England and may not be transferable to other areas. In addition, potential influencing factors such as sex, age and breed of biting dog were not considered.

Nevertheless, the results are instructive

"Although this was a small study, the results are enlightening and provide significantly improved indicators of the true burden of dog bites in public health," summarizes senior researcher. Carri Westgarth, dog behavior expert at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Liverpool, in a press release on the study results. The discovered link between the victim's personality and the risk of being bitten requires further investigation and new thinking in the design of future dog bite prevention programs.

According to Westgarth, previously assumed risk factors must be reassessed. So far, for example, have more prevailed the conviction that most dog bites come from familiar dogs. (Vb)