Study Details:

Name and contact details of the investigator:

Jade Raffle, PhD student jraffle@rvc.ac.uk

Supervised by:
Professor Virginia Luis Fuentes, Professor David Connolly & Dr Androniki Psifidi

If you have any questions or queries please contact Jade at jraffle@rvc.ac.uk

The researchers would like to acknowledge funders of the project: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [grant number BB/M009513/1] and Pet Plan.

 

Background to the research

We at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) have a long-standing interest in heart disease in cats, and our clinical research has helped to improve diagnosis and treatment of the most common heart disease in cats - hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We have contacted you because we believe you can help us investigate an important area that has not been studied: the effects of lifestyle and environment on the risk of developing HCM in cats. 

Survey participation:

We would like to invite you to participate in this survey

  • If your cat is over the age of 9 years old and does not have a diagnosed heart condition. 
     
  • Alternatively if your cat is any age and has been diagnosed with HCM.

It is important that we collect information on feline lifestyle and environment from both cats with and without heart disease, and we would be extremely grateful if you could spare some time to fill in our questionnaire.

 

The Questionnaire has ethical approval (RVC Social Science Ethical Review Board reference: URN SR2017-1243)

This survey aims to collect environmental and lifestyle information from both healthy and diseased cats to see if environment and or lifestyle play a role in the progression of HCM. During the survey you will be asked questions about you, your cat, and your cat's relatives (if known). The survey itself should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete, with an optional cat personality section at the end which should take no longer than an additional 10 minutes if you choose to complete this section.