PET OWNERSHIP AND THE RELIABILITY OF THE COMPANION ANIMAL BONDING SCALE AMONG PARTICIPANTS OF THE MULTICENTER AIDS COHORT STUDY

A psychometric evaluation of the Companion Animal Bonding Scale (CABS) was conducted among participants of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). In 1991, MACS participants in Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Ange les were asked to complete a questionnaire about pets, which included the CABS for their favorite pet. Follow-up questionnaires were adminis tered to Los Angeles participants in 1992 and 1993. Internal consisten cy and intraobserver reliability of the CABS were determined by measur ing the Cronbach alpha and test-retest-retest correlation coefficient, respectively. Forty-eight percent of respondents (907/1,872) at the t hree sites owned pets, of whom 896 (99%) completed a CABS, The Cronbac h alpha for the CABS was .79. Among Los Angeles participants, the test -retest-retest correlation coefficient for the 228 pet owners who comp leted the CABS for the same pet in each of the three years was .81, an d was highest among the 98 dog owners (.86) and the 92 cat owners (.86 ). The Companion Animal Bonding Scale is a short, rapid, easy to admin ister instrument which is readily acceptable, and shows adequate inter nal consistency and intraobserver reliability for dog and cat owners.