Stress in hospitalised and clinic-visiting cats: does synthetic pheromone therapy reduce stress scores and improve food intake vs placebo? — POSSIBLE

In hospitalised or clinic-visiting cats, does synthetic pheromone therapy vs placebo reduce stress scores and improve food intake?

Shelf #785 · gate-verified and displayed under the developer's blinded-trial rule

POSSIBLE: For stress scores, two randomised trials in clinic/hospital settings are positive, while the food-intake half of the question is inconsistent. In Klintip 2022 (randomised controlled clinical trial, 80 domestic cats hospitalised after neutering surgery in Thailand), singly caged cats given a feline facial pheromone diffuser, a hiding box, or both showed statistically significant reductions in cat stress score earlier than the no-enrichment control group — with the pheromone product identified in the full text (PMC) as a diffuser of the synthetic analogue of the feline facial pheromone fraction F3 (Feliway, Ceva Santé Animale) run 24 hours for 7 days — but there were no differences in food intake, and salivary cortisol (range 0.24 to 0.66 ng/mL) did not differ. In Pereira 2016 (randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 87 cats at veterinary consultations), Feliway spray on the examination table gave significantly lower stress levels than placebo spray (P = 0.02), with no significant difference in handling scores. For food intake specifically, the oldest record (Griffith 2000, 20 cats per study, vehicle-controlled) found significant increases in grooming and interest in food on synthetic facial pheromone, and 24-hour food intake significantly greater when a cat carrier was added to pheromone exposure than with pheromone alone — a confounded comparison. Design class (a): randomisation and blinding are both established by carded records — Pereira 2016 is 'randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled' in its own wording and Klintip 2022 is a randomised controlled trial whose full text states caregivers were blinded; the blinding in Klintip is caregiver blinding, disclosed here. The honest limits: preparations differ by product and delivery (F3 diffuser vs Feliway spray vs towel-sprayed pheromone), populations differ (post-neutering inpatients vs consultation outpatients vs mixed healthy/ill cats), stress scores are observer-rated, and no carded trial shows a food-intake benefit of pheromone alone against placebo in hospitalised cats. Scope note: this shelf is hospital/clinic settings only — the home-setting feline idiopathic cystitis diffuser question is Shelf #711's home and no record from it is re-carded here. Drafted Nov 10, 2026 (VetMed build, topic #785); all figures from the abstract fetched and verified at drafting, except the Feliway F3 diffuser identification and caregiver blinding for Klintip 2022, which are from that record's PMC full text as stated on its card.

Klintip 2022: hospitalised post-neutering cats given a pheromone diffuser (alone or with a hiding box) reduced stress scores earlier than controls, but food intake did not differ

Randomised controlled clinical trial (record's own wording: 'The study design was based on a randomized controlled clinical trial'; publication type: Journal Article)

Who: Cats: 80 domestic cats undergoing routine neutering surgery and hospitalised in Thailand, assessed by behavioural demeanor scoring as friendly (DSS1) or aggressive (DSS2) and randomly allocated to single standard cages with a hiding box (B), feline facial pheromone (P), both (BP), or no additional enrichment (C). Cat stress score (CSS), food intake and hide-seeking behaviour were recorded, and salivary cortisol was measured by ELISA. The pheromone preparation is identified in the record's PMC full text (not its abstract) as a diffuser of the synthetic analogue of the feline facial pheromone fraction F3 (Feliway, Ceva Santé Animale) installed at 2.0 m height and operated 24 hours for 7 days; the full text also states caregivers were blinded.

Result: On the 1st day of admission, aggressive cats had a significantly higher CSS (4.16 ± 0.29) than friendly cats (3.27 ± 0.16). Both demeanor groups showed statistically significant reductions in stress levels earlier than the control group after the enrichments were provided (the full text specifies Feliway statistically reduced stress scores on day 3 in friendly cats, and the combination on day 2). Saliva cortisol measurements ranged from 0.24 to 0.66 ng/mL, with no statistical differences between the 1st day and other days. No differences in food intake or hide-seeking behaviour were seen within each group during the same period. The record concludes enrichment including a hiding box and pheromone reduced stress, especially in aggressive cats, while cortisol, food intake and hide-seeking were ineffective for assessing stress after neutering surgery.

Watch out: The control was no enrichment, not a placebo diffuser, so expectation effects on scorers are only partly addressed (caregiver blinding is stated in the full text; scorer blinding is not separately established in the abstract). The pheromone arm is entangled with the hiding-box arms in a four-arm design with 80 cats split also by demeanor, and the headline food-intake outcome for this shelf's question was null. Single-centre, post-neutering population in Thailand.

Klintip W, Jarudecha T, Rattanatumhi K, Ritchoo S, Muikaew R, Wangsud S, Sussadee M. First study on stress evaluation and reduction in hospitalized cats after neutering surgery. Vet World. 2022;15(9):2111-2118. PMID: 36341062. Registry ID: none in the record. MeSH: none in the record (record's own keywords: cortisol, domestic cats, food intake, pheromone)

Pereira 2016: Feliway spray on the examination table gave significantly lower stress scores than placebo spray in 87 consultation cats (P = 0.02), with no significant handling difference

Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial (record's own wording; publication type: Randomized Controlled Trial)

Who: Cats: 87 cats of both sexes, castrated or intact, any breed, aged over 26 weeks, attending veterinary consultations. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled design, Feliway spray (synthetic feline facial pheromone preparation, named in the record) or placebo solution spray was applied to the examination table in two consultation rooms, with spray allocation switched after a 15-day washout. After the first 15 minutes of consultation, an observer assessed stress on a seven-level cat stress score and ease of handling on a five-point scale developed by the authors.

Result: Use of Feliway spray led to significant (P = 0.01) differences in cats' usual behaviour according to their owners. Animals exposed to Feliway spray showed significantly lower stress levels than those treated with placebo (P = 0.02). Regarding the scale of handling, the scoring did not differ significantly between cats under Feliway spray and cats receiving placebo (the record prints P = 0.01 beside this non-significance statement, reproduced here as printed). The record concludes Feliway spray on the examination table reduces stress during veterinary consultations.

Watch out: Consultation outpatients, not hospitalised inpatients, and a spray on a table — not a diffuser — so the result belongs to this specific preparation and delivery. Stress and handling were observer-scored on study-developed scales, the abstract gives P values without group score values, and the handling P value as printed (0.01) sits oddly beside the 'did not differ significantly' wording — both are reproduced exactly as the record gives them and the discrepancy is flagged, not resolved.

Pereira JS, Fragoso S, Beck A, Lavigne S, Varejão AS, da Graça Pereira G. Improving the feline veterinary consultation: the usefulness of Feliway spray in reducing cats' stress. J Feline Med Surg. 2016;18(12):959-964. PMID: 26282847. Registry ID: none in the record. MeSH: Aerosols · Animals · Anti-Anxiety Agents/administration & dosage, pharmacology* · Behavior, Animal/drug effects* · Cats/psychology* · Double-Blind Method · Female · Hospitals, Animal · Male · Physical Examination/veterinary* · Referral and Consultation · Stress, Psychological/prevention & control

Griffith 2000: synthetic facial pheromone increased grooming and interest in food vs vehicle in caged cats, and 24-hour food intake was greater with pheromone plus a carrier than pheromone alone

Controlled clinical trial, vehicle-controlled (publication types: Clinical Trial, Controlled Clinical Trial; MeSH includes Double-Blind Method and Prospective Studies)

Who: Cats: two studies of 20 cats each (in each study 7 cats healthy and 13 clinically ill), in a hospital/cage setting. In study 1, cats were assigned to exposure to synthetic feline facial pheromone (FFP) (treated group: 4 healthy, 6 ill) or to the vehicle (70% ethanol solution; control group: 3 healthy, 7 ill), via a small cotton towel sprayed 30 minutes previously placed in the cage; cats were videotaped for 125 minutes and food intake measured over that period, with tapes scored at 5-minute intervals. In study 2, all cats were exposed to FFP, with a cat carrier placed in the cage for group 1 (2 healthy, 8 ill) and not for group 2 (5 healthy, 5 ill), and 24-hour food intake was measured.

Result: In study 1, significant increases in grooming and interest in food were found in cats exposed to FFP compared with vehicle; significant positive correlations were detected between grooming and facial rubbing, walking and facial rubbing, interest in food and facial rubbing, eating and facial rubbing, grooming and interest in food, and grooming and eating. In study 2, 24-hour food intake was significantly greater in cats exposed to FFP with the cat carrier, compared with cats exposed to FFP alone. The record gives no gram amounts for food intake in its abstract.

Watch out: Very small, old and mixed healthy/ill samples; study 2 has no pheromone-free arm, so its food-intake difference is carrier-plus-pheromone vs pheromone alone and cannot isolate a pheromone effect on intake. 'Interest in food' over 125 minutes is a behavioural surrogate, not measured intake against placebo. Randomisation is not stated in the record's abstract.

Griffith CA, Steigerwald ES, Buffington CA. Effects of a synthetic facial pheromone on behavior of cats. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2000;217(8):1154-6. PMID: 11043684. Registry ID: none in the record. MeSH: Animals · Behavior, Animal/drug effects* · Cat Diseases/physiopathology* · Cats/physiology* · Double-Blind Method · Eating/drug effects* · Grooming/drug effects · Motor Activity/drug effects · Pheromones/pharmacology* · Prospective Studies · Videotape Recording

Synthesis: pheromone preparations reduce observer-rated stress scores in clinic/hospital cats in randomised trials, but a food-intake benefit vs placebo is not shown — POSSIBLE

Synthesis

Who: Synthesis of the cards above: Klintip 2022 (80 hospitalised post-neutering cats, F3 diffuser, randomised), Pereira 2016 (87 consultation cats, Feliway spray, randomised double-blind placebo-controlled) and Griffith 2000 (two 20-cat controlled studies, towel-sprayed synthetic facial pheromone, vehicle control) — hospital and clinic settings only.

Result: (1) Stress scores: earlier significant CSS reduction with diffuser enrichment vs no-enrichment control (Klintip 2022), and significantly lower stress vs placebo spray (P = 0.02, Pereira 2016). (2) Handling: no significant difference (Pereira 2016). (3) Cortisol: no differences (Klintip 2022, range 0.24-0.66 ng/mL). (4) Food intake: no difference in the hospital RCT (Klintip 2022); increased interest in food vs vehicle and a carrier-confounded 24-hour intake difference in the small 2000 studies. A separate hospital-environment study of a feline facial pheromone analogue measuring physiology rather than stress scores (PMID: 26662036, 30 cats) found exposure did not reduce the physiologic and behavioural changes measured — cross-pointed here, not carded, as its outcomes are examination physiology, not this shelf's stress-score and intake outcomes. Stress-score benefit POSSIBLE; food-intake benefit unproven.

Watch out: One-home boundary: Shelf #711 (synthetic facial pheromone diffuser in feline idiopathic cystitis, home setting; PMIDs 15135349 and 40147044 desk-checked this session) is a different population and setting — nothing from it is re-carded here and its null result is not transported to hospital use, just as these hospital results are not transported to cystitis. Preparations are not interchangeable: an F3 diffuser, a table spray and a towel spray are different deliveries of pheromone products, and other products (appeasing or intercat pheromones) are not addressed at all.

Synthesis of Klintip W et al. PMID: 36341062; Pereira JS et al. PMID: 26282847; Griffith CA et al. PMID: 11043684. Registry IDs as on the individual cards.

Back to the library index · VetMed home

VetMed is an educational resource, not veterinary advice.