Hoarding disorder
Gioia Bottesi, Caterina Novara
Hoarding disorder will probably be included in the next edition of DSM as a category in its own right.
Our study aimed to investigate the hoarding behaviour in a general Italian population based sample
in terms of the demographic aspect and in relation to overlapping among clinical constructs. For this
purpose, several self-evaluation questionnaires (SI-R, OCI-R, BAI, WDQ, BDI-II, FIS, and PDQ-4+) were
given to a group of 90 individuals. The results did not highlight differences associated with gender,
whereas it appears that the younger participants showed greater tendencies towards acquisition.
In line with literature, hoarding characteristics were found to be associated with behaviour related
to order and symmetry and to dysphoric characteristics, but only slightly associated with worry.
Furthermore, associations between hoarding behaviour and paranoid, schizotypal, narcissistic,
borderline, dependent and obsessive-compulsive traits were found. Lastly, our findings seem to
support the independence between hoarding behaviour and other obsessive-compulsive constructs and
suggest the absence of a relationship between hoarding and impulsivity conceptualized as a difficulty
in decision making.
Keywords
Hoarding disorder, acquisition, clutter, comorbidity, non-clinical sample.
