Exposure to stressful and traumatic life events in hoarding: Comparison to clinical controls

BACKGROUND: Individuals with hoarding report stressful and traumatic life events at an elevated rate compared with those with obsessive-compulsive disorder and healthy controls, but have not been compared with other clinical groups. This study compared rates of traumatic life events between those with clinically significant hoarding, anxiety disorders, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hypothesizing that rates would be higher in the hoarding and PTSD groups than the anxiety group. METHODS: Rates of traumatic and stressful events were compared across groups. RESULTS: All comparisons across groups on types of events were significant (partial-eta squared 0.051-0.162). The hoarding group endorsed significantly more crime-related events but similar rates of other events as compared to the PTSD and anxiety disorder groups. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that many stressful and traumatic life events are not uniquely elevated in hoarding when compared with other clinical populations.