A comparison between community and treatment-seeking samples of hoarding disorder

Hoarding disorder studies are primarily based on persons who seek treatment and demonstrate good insight. The aim of the present study is to evaluate whether there are differences between community and treatment-seeking samples of individuals with hoarding disorder (HD).

Fourteen people with HD from the community and twenty treatment-seeking people with HD were assessed by a battery of instruments to evaluate HD features and other associated characteristics.

Compared to the treatment-seeking sample, the HD community sample was older, had poorer insight, and had a lower prevalence of comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). There were no differences in gender, education, presence of psychiatric comorbidities, quality of life, and hoarding behavior characteristics between the samples. The final logistic regression model with the Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) as the single predictor of treatment-seeking status was statistically significant, indicating that it was able to distinguish between the two samples. The model explained between 20.7% and 27.9% of the variance of subjects, and correctly classified 67.6% of cases.

Our results indicate that there appear to be few differences between the treatment-seeking and community samples of individuals with HD. The presence of comorbid OCD in treatment-seeking groups seems to be more frequent than in HD community samples.