A naturalistic study of emotion regulation-enhanced cognitive-behavioral group therapy for hoarding disorder in a community setting

Jessica R. Grisham*, Keong Yap, Simone Isemann, Jeanettte Svehla, Nancy Briggs, Melissa M. Norberg

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)
    79 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Background: Cognitive-behavioral group therapy for hoarding disorder (HD) is efficacious, but outcomes are modest and dropout rates are generally high. Clinical challenges in this population include high rates of comorbidity and difficulty regulating and tolerating negative emotions, which may reduce engagement with discarding exposures and lead to increased dropout. Methods: In the current naturalistic study, we evaluated standard group cognitive-behavioral therapy enhanced with a three-session emotion regulation module in a large sample of individuals (N = 115) seeking treatment for HD at a community mental health clinic. We evaluated outcomes for distress tolerance, as well as hoarding symptoms and comorbid depression and anxiety symptoms. Results: Distress tolerance was significantly improved at post-treatment, Hoarding symptoms, anxiety, and depression were also significantly decreased. Distress tolerance predicted more severe hoarding symptoms at baseline, but improvement in distress tolerance was not significantly associated with improvement in hoarding symptoms. Limitations: The primary limitation was the absence of a control treatment condition, but HD is known to be a chronic condition which tends not to improve in waitlist control conditions. Conclusions: Integrating emotion regulation strategies may provide an important pathway to improving treatment outcomes for hoarding disorder.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number100450
    Pages (from-to)1-7
    Number of pages1
    JournalJournal of Affective Disorders Reports
    Volume10
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2022. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

    Keywords

    • hoarding
    • emotion regulation
    • distress tolerance
    • cognitive-behavioral therapy

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