Characterization of Late-Life Hoarding Symptomology Among Rural Adults

Extant research on hoarding has largely taken place in urban settings, preventing generalizations to rural communities. Thus, our objective was to provide a profile of late life rural hoarding.

We used data from a survey distributed at community presentations (N = 97) and data from baseline assessments administered as part of larger treatment outcome studies for geriatric hoarding (N = 55).

On the community sample, 33% of participants scored above the clinical cutoff on a brief screening measure. Of the older adults diagnosed with hoarding disorder, 65% lived with at least one other person and 49% were married, a strong contrast to urban samples. Participants who lived alone had higher levels of clutter than those who lived with at least one other person, but did not report higher levels of subjective hoarding symptoms.

While rurality might lead to lower clutter levels in primary rooms in the home, it does not affect the overall volume of clutter that has accumulated, nor the subjectively experienced level of distress.

Our rural sample differed substantially from urban samples on characteristics that should be considered by clinicians when forming their case conceptualization for late life hoarding patients.