Vet-AI (creators of the Joii Pet Care mobile app) has been commissioned to deliver a study which will test how the use of a quality of life tool - the VetMetrica™ HRQL questionnaire - impacts conversations between owners and their vets in real-life scenarios.

The VetMetrica™ HRQL questionnaire was developed by the University of Glasgow and designed by Zoetis. It’s been embedded into a mobile app, called the Animal Research Tool (ART for short). Dog owners will complete the VetMetrica™ HRQL questionnaire (it is called the ‘Quality of Life Assessment’ on the ART App), then quality of life scores along will be displayed on the app screen with an alert message, if the score is below the threshold.

The study involves dogs attending the practice for routine care (e.g. preventatives or pre-neutering checks). It is essential that each dog is examined in-person by their veterinarian to correlate clinical findings with HRQL results, regardless of whether an alert was produced.

This study has been approved by the Ethics Review Board of the RCVS under the reference: 2024-108-Chapman.

Contributing to Science
Your participation will help improve quality of life assessment tools and potentially advance early disease detection and treatment in veterinary medicine.

Better Client Engagement
Have more discussions about quality of life with your clients so they understand the benefits of being proactive in health prevention.

Study Reward
Participating vets or vet practices receive £100 per dog that successfully completes all study steps. This reward can be issued via Amazon vouchers or a paid invoice to the practice. Specific payment preferences will be coordinated on a case-by-case basis with the practice’s decision-maker.

CPD Recognition 
Gain credits via a post-training quiz. 

Objectives:

1. Evaluate VetMetrica™ Quality of Life Scores:

Assess associations between VetMetrica™ scores and veterinary clinical health assessments, with a focus on osteoarthritis (OA), in real-life scenarios.

2. Enhance User Experience:

Gather feedback through owner and veterinarian surveys and interviews.

3. Promote Improved Communication:

Evaluate how VetMetrica™ enhances discussions during consultations.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how VetMetrica™, a validated tool for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQL), can be used during routine veterinary visits to support clinical decision-making and enhance communication between veterinarians and dog owners.

VetMetrica™ is an online tool that helps dog owners assess their pet's quality of life by answering a set of questions.

The tool creates a VetMetrica™ HRQL report showing how a dog scores in four profiles: Energetic and Enthusiastic, Happy and Content, Active and Comfortable, and Calm and Relaxed.

If the overall score suggests that something might be wrong with the dog’s health, the tool sends an "Alert," encouraging the owner to take their dog to the vet for further evaluation.

Various studies done previously on quality of life assessed by owners show that there is a discrepancy between owner perception of quality of life and the real health status of their dogs (Davis, 2020; Rodger, 2021). This highlights the potential for VetMetrica™ to draw attention to issues unperceived by owners and promote communication with veterinarians and further diagnostics.

This could lead to chronic conditions being diagnosed and treated earlier if the alert leads to actions being taken.

We hypothesize that owners are likely to substantially underestimate the presence of chronic disease in their dogs, especially osteoarthritis. VetMetrica™ identified possible undetected disease in 27% of dogs considered perfectly healthy by their owners in a large cohort.

While another QoL study identified 41% of dogs in a smaller study had chronic disease in their medical history, including 20% with osteoarthritis, despite owner perceptions of good health.

This study will recruit 510 healthy dogs across the UK. Dogs will be categorised into three age groups (2-4 years, 5-7 years, and 8-10 years). Participating owners will complete the VetMetrica™ HRQL questionnaire before their dog’s in-person consultation with a vet. All dogs, regardless of their alert status, will undergo a clinical examination, during which veterinarians will review the VetMetrica™ HRQL scores and complete a vet assessment and osteoarthritis (OA) checklist using a questionnaire link. No definitive diagnosis is needed, just an expert opinion on what might be impacting the dog’s quality of life, which will be collected via the questionnaire filled out by the vet during the in-person consultation. Follow-up surveys and interviews will be conducted with both owners and veterinarians to evaluate the usability of the VetMetrica™ tool and its impact on communication during veterinary consultations.

Inclusion criteria

- Dogs aged 2 to 10 years.
- The owner’s first language is English.
- The owner is comfortable using a smartphone and apps.
- The owner is available to attend the in-person consultation and complete all surveys (the same owner must complete all steps).

Exclusion criteria 

- Dogs diagnosed with chronic conditions (any illnesses that require continuous medication to control the symptoms)
- Dogs on long-term medication prescribed by their vet (routine parasite control, other preventives and nutraceutical supplements are acceptable)
- Dogs presented with acute conditions.

This is a prospective, cross-sectional study:

- Conducted across first opinion practices in the UK
- Recruitment via the Joii Pet Care App

Intended for dogs who are healthy and have an upcoming health check with their vet in practice (e.g. for vaccinations, prescription preventatives, health plan check-ups, etc.).

510 seemingly healthy dogs to complete the study: 2-4 years: 150 dogs | 5-7 years: 150 dogs | 8-10 years: 210 dogs

All dogs need to be seen in person, regardless of producing an alert message or not.

We are running this study to understand how VetMetrica™, a validated tool for measuring dogs’ health-related quality of life, can be effectively integrated into routine veterinary visits. The study aims to determine how VetMetrica™ HRQL scores correlate with dogs’ health status, particularly osteoarthritis, and to evaluate its impact on clinical decision-making and communication between veterinarians and pet owners. Additionally, by collecting feedback from both owners and vets, we seek to assess the tool’s usability and its potential to enable earlier detection of health issues, ultimately improving pet wellbeing.

We collect information at several stages of the study to ensure both clinical accuracy and thesuccess of our research. Initially, we ask for a brief medical history review to confirm the dogmeets the criteria for eligibility. During the consultation, your in-person assessment and OA checklist provide the vital clinical data we need to correlate your professional findings with theowner's HRQL scores. Most importantly, your post-consultation feedback allows us to evaluate exactly how the HRQL report impacted your conversation with the owner and whether it helped identify subclinical issues. Finally, optional telephone interviews provide a deeper understanding of your experience with the tool to help shape the future of the platform.

You do not have to pay to take part in the study.

We expect the results of this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals. All answers to the questions will be kept strictly confidential and anonymised. Results from the study may be printedin veterinary journals and also in the non-veterinary press, but neither you, your practice, nor the pet will be identifiable from any published work.

Yes. In order to take part in the study and support your client(s) and their dog(s), we ask that youregister in the Joii Studies Web App for clinicians. It’s in this platform thatyou will be able to find all the forms you need to complete and see the list of participants, find out what step they are at and see the information they have inputted. The study team will add yourpractice to the study so the participants you see can be allocated to you. Then we will invite you to register with your email address and create a password. This password will also be part of youre-signature, so we ask that you choose something safe but that you can easily remember.

Yes. We expect you to do the consultation as you would normally do and address any concernsthe owner presents you with as per your normal way of working. The assessments for the studyshould reflect what you did in the consultation. You can advise any products that are necessary, and administer medication or preventative products as you deem necessary.

If you don’t receive the report before the consultation, we ask that you email us at [email protected], reporting the issue as soon as possible. If the report is not reviewed before the appointment, the participation will become invalid for both yourself and your client.

The vet assessment and OA checklist that need to be filled during the in-person consultation arean essential step of this study. Without this step being completed, we cannot give you or theclient the study reward. If you were not able to do it during the consultation time, we ask that youdo so right after the consultation as soon as possible. Not completing this step will block yourclient from completing their steps too.

We are not testing a product, only finding out information about the pet and checking the impact the report produced has on how you and your client communicate. As the owner should be already going to the vet practice for a reason other than the study, we don’t anticipate that the study will create issues for the pet or put them under unnecessary stress. Should the client become worried about their dog’s health and want to discuss it with a vet sooner than theiralready scheduled appointment, they can reach out to you - their registered vet - any time, and also have 24/7 support from our vets available during the study period via the Joii Studies Web App. 

In the unfortunate and very sad event that the pet dies or is put to sleep during the study period we ask that you inform us as soon as possible, ideally by filling out a “Report an issue” form withinthe Joii Studies platform for the respective participant. Please send us an up-to-date clinicalhistory for that pet so we can fill out all the necessary paperwork that relates to Adverse Events.Please send this information to [email protected].

If a pet becomes unwell or has an accident, please report this via the “Report an issue” form within the Joii Studies platform for the respective participant.

We ask that you contact us via email at [email protected] in the following circumstances:

●You don’t want to take part anymore
●You are having technical difficulties
●You are concerned about the pet's health
●The owner cancelled their vet appointment because they no longer need to go to the vet
●The practice had to change the date of the in person appointment
●You had trouble with the in-person questionnaire during your in person appointment
●Any concerns you may have about the study, the dog or their participation.

If you give us your express consent to being contacted by the external company that will berunning the interviews, and if you are one of the 10 selected to go through this step, we will share your contact details (name, phone number and email address) with Social Value Lab.

You will receive a £60 Amazon voucher for completing this step. If you do not wish to take part in theinterviews, this will not affect your involvement in the study. We will share the study data with Zoetis in pseudo-anonymous form, meaning they will NOT receive any personal or identifying information of yours (name, phone number or email address).

Only the Study Coordinator will be able to link your data in the Joii database and the Zoetis database.

Videos and clinical information obtained during the study may be retained for at least 6 years andpossibly used in future research projects and for training and education purposes. All data will bestored in a secure database only accessible to people working on the study. You can have yourdata removed and permanently deleted without penalty. Please let us know if that is the case byemailing us at [email protected].

If you decide you want to withdraw from the study, you may do so without explanation, and without penalty. In the event that you decide to withdraw from the study for whatever reason, please notify us by emailing us at [email protected].

Any information you have given can be removed from accessible files but any clinical information from assessments will be kept in the database for a period of 6 years. If you do wish for your data to be deleted from the study and not shared with the Study Sponsor Zoetis, please make sure totell us that in your communication with us.

If you have any questions about the study, please email us at [email protected].

For any questions about data collection by the Zoetis app and report, you can contact Zoetis directly at [email protected]

For any urgent matters, you can contact the Head of Clinical Trials Delivery at Vet-AI, Dr Marta Chapman MRCVS at [email protected] or call +44 7715 988906