Clinical characteristics and predictors of hoarding in children with anxiety disorders

Objective: This investigation was conducted to describe the clinical of characteristics of anxious children with significant hoarding behavior and to examine the contributions of anxiety, obsessive compulsive, and inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms in the prediction of hoarding. Method: One hundred nine children seeking treatment for an anxiety disorder and their parents completed clinician-administered and parent-report measures of emotional and behavioral symptoms, functional impairment, and hoarding symptoms. Results: Elevated levels of hoarding were reported for 22% of the sample. Children with elevated hoarding scored significantly higher on measures of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, attention, social, and thought problems, rule-breaking, aggression, and overall functional impairment and had higher rates of major depressive disorder than children without hoarding. Attention problems predicted hoarding symptomology over-and-above the contributions of either anxiety or obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Conclusions: Findings suggest a pattern of behavioral and emotional dysregulation for children who hoard and provide further insight into the relationships between anxiety, attention problems, and hoarding.