Approach Considerations

It is often helpful to visit the home of patients with suspected hoarding or to ask them or their relatives to bring photos of the main living areas to show you.

Assessment Measures

There are several tools available for assessing patients suspected of having hoarding disorder.

The Activities of Daily Living in Hoarding (ADL-H) scale is a series of questions inquiring about how much clutter interferes with the patient's ability to complete standard daily activities such as bathing, dressing, and preparing meals. Other questions address quality of living conditions and safety and health issues.^[17]

The Saving Inventory-Revised is a 23-item scale with 3 subscales: Acquiring, Clutter, and Difficulty Discarding.^[18]The first subscale determines the extent of compulsive buying and acquiring of free things. The second subscale assesses the amount of clutter and problems associated with it. The final subscale is used to measure the level of discomfort associated with removing the clutter.

The Saving Cognitions Inventory is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 24 items across 4 subscales that assess the patient's beliefs and attitudes regarding attempts to discard items.

Treatment & Management

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