Clinical characteristics of hoarding disorder in Japanese patients

Masumi Kuwano; Tomohiro Nakao; Koji Yonemoto; Satoshi Yamada; Keitaro Murayama; Kayo Okada; Shinichi Honda; Keisuke Ikari; Hirofumi Tomiyama; Suguru Hasuzawa; Shigenobu Kanba

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03527

Clinical characteristics of hoarding disorder in Japanese patients

Heliyon. 2020 Mar 6;6(3):e03527. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03527. eCollection 2020 Mar.

Authors

Masumi Kuwano^{1

2}, Tomohiro Nakao¹, Koji Yonemoto^{3

4}, Satoshi Yamada^{1

5}, Keitaro Murayama¹, Kayo Okada^{1

6}, Shinichi Honda^{1

7}, Keisuke Ikari¹, Hirofumi Tomiyama¹, Suguru Hasuzawa¹, Shigenobu Kanba¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
² Nagasaki Support Center for Children, Women and People with Disabilities, Nagasaki, Japan.
³ Advanced Medical Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan.
⁴ Division of Biostatistics, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan.
⁵ Fukuoka Prefectural Psychiatric Center Dazaifu Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan.
⁶ Okehazama Hospital Fujita Mental Care Center, Aichi, Japan.
⁷ Department of Neuropsychiatry, National Hospital Organization Kyushu Medical Center, Fukuoka, Japan.

Abstract

Previous studies have reported clinical characteristics of hoarding disorder (HD), such as early onset, a chronic course, familiality, high unmarried rate, and high rates of comorbidities. However, clinical research targeting Japanese HD patients has been very limited. As a result, there is a low recognition of HD in Japan, leading to insufficient evaluation and treatment of Japanese HD patients. The aim of the current study was to delineate the clinical characteristics of Japanese HD patients. Thirty HD patients, 20 obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, and 21 normal controls (NC) were targeted in this study. The HD group had a tendency toward higher familiality, earlier onset, and longer disease duration compared to the OCD group. In addition, the HD group showed a significantly higher unmarried rate than the NC group. The top two comorbidities in the HD group were major depressive disorder (56.7%) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (26.7%). The HD group had significantly higher scores on hoarding rating scales and lower scores on the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale than the other two groups. The current study showed a clinical trend in Japanese HD patients similar to previous studies in various countries, suggesting that HD may be a universal disease with consistent clinical symptoms.

Keywords: Clinical characteristics; Clinical research; Diagnostics; Health sciences; Hoarding disorder; Japanese patients; Psychiatry; Public health.