Early intervention group therapy for hoarding in college students: A pilot study

Despite the growing body of work to develop and evaluate treatments for hoarding disorder, no research has sought to therapeutically address the full scope of hoarding symptoms in an early intervention. The present study piloted two iterations of a cognitive-behavioral group therapy early intervention for college students with elevated hoarding symptoms, collecting preliminary feasibility, acceptability, and outcome data. Across an eight-session intervention program, participants (N = 4) reported substantial decreases in saving cognitions (t[3] = 3.86, p = .031) and clutter (t[3] = 3.77, p = .033), with 75% reporting clinically reliable change in overall hoarding symptoms. Although all treatment-completing participants rated the protocol as acceptable, 60% (n = 6) of participants assessed at baseline either dropped out (n = 3), were excluded (n = 2), or discontinued the intervention (n = 1); additionally, each group experienced three session delays, each of which delayed the next session by 5.33 days on average (SD = 1.51), suggesting that additional research is needed to understand barriers to implementation of early intervention for hoarding in a college setting.