How Can We Better Detect and Evaluate Hoarding Symptoms in Greek Patients?

What you need to know

• Hoarding disorder affects 2-6% of people and causes significant problems with daily functioning and quality of life
• The Saving Inventory-Revised (SI-R) is a widely-used tool to assess hoarding symptoms across three main areas: clutter, difficulty discarding items, and excessive acquisition
• A Greek version of this assessment tool has been validated and shown to be reliable for identifying hoarding symptoms in Greek populations

Understanding Hoarding Disorder

Hoarding disorder is a serious mental health condition where people have extreme difficulty getting rid of possessions and feel a strong need to save items, regardless of their actual value. This leads to living spaces becoming so cluttered that rooms can’t be used for their intended purposes.

The impact of hoarding goes far beyond just having a messy home. People with hoarding disorder often struggle with:

• Basic daily activities like cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene
• Higher risk of fires, falls, and health problems from unsanitary conditions
• Strained relationships with family and friends
• Difficulties at work
• Financial problems from excessive buying or acquiring items
• Social isolation due to embarrassment about home conditions

The Need for Good Assessment Tools

To help people with hoarding disorder, mental health professionals need reliable ways to:

• Identify problematic hoarding behaviors
• Measure how severe the hoarding is
• Track changes in symptoms over time
• Determine if treatments are working

The Saving Inventory-Revised (SI-R) was created to meet these needs. It looks at three key aspects of hoarding:

1. Clutter - How much living spaces are filled with saved items
2. Difficulty discarding - How hard it is to throw things away
3. Excessive acquisition - Problems with collecting too many items through buying or free items

Study of the Greek Version

The researchers wanted to create a Greek version of this assessment tool that would work well for Greek-speaking populations. They:

• Carefully translated the assessment into Greek
• Tested it with 554 Greek adults
• Checked that it was reliable and measured hoarding symptoms accurately
• Compared results to other mental health assessments

What They Found

The Greek version of the SI-R proved to be reliable and valid:

• It consistently measured the same three aspects of hoarding as the original English version
• Results remained stable when people took the assessment again later
• Higher scores weren’t simply due to other conditions like anxiety or depression
• The assessment worked equally well regardless of age, gender, education level, or income

Why This Matters for Patients and Families

Having a validated Greek version of the SI-R means:

• Greek-speaking people with hoarding symptoms can be more accurately assessed
• Mental health professionals in Greece have a reliable tool to identify hoarding disorder
• Treatment progress can be better tracked and measured
• Research on hoarding disorder in Greek populations will be more feasible

Conclusions

• The Greek version of the SI-R is a reliable tool for assessing hoarding symptoms
• It measures three key aspects: clutter, difficulty discarding items, and problems with acquiring too many things
• Mental health professionals can use this assessment with confidence in Greek-speaking populations