Hoarding Research

Hoarding Disorder is characterised by the over-accumulation of items, and difficulties in discarding, which leads to severe clutter and self-neglect. Hoarding behaviours can cause significant distress, and negatively affect a person's health and wellbeing.  It is associated with high levels of shame and stigma, and reductions in quality of life.  

The factors underlying this disorder are not fully understood, though experiences of trauma in childhood seem to be a key factor. Due to the high social and economic costs of hoarding behaviours, there is an urgent need for improved understanding of the causes and consequences of hoarding behaviours, and for high-quality, interdisciplinary research to devise individually tailored intervention strategies to reduce its impact.   

The Hoarding Research Group (HRG) brings together academics from Psychology, Social Work, Public Health, Nursing and Environmental Health. The Group is part of the UK Hoarding Research Network, led by Professor Sharon Morein at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. 

Current areas of research include: 

•     Links  between childhood trauma and neglect, and hoarding behaviours in adulthood. 
•     Help-seeking behaviours in people who hoard. The role of social media and peer-support groups, and how shame and stigma can impact on help-seeking behaviours.  
•     The role of executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation in hoarding. 
•     Psychological and clinical associations with hoarding behaviours. 
•     The similarities and differences between hoarding and collecting. 
•     Measuring digital hoarding in workplace and personal settings, and how digital hoarding can be associated with cybersecurity risks and reduced sustainability. 
•     The experiences of  professionals who work with people who hoard, and how multi-agency approaches can lead to better outcomes. 
•     The incidence of animal hoarding, and how this compares to object hoarding. 
•     Geospatial analyses to uncover the characteristics of neighbourhoods with high densities of hoarding

The group is led by Professor Nick Neave who is also Chair of the UK Hoarding Partnership, a large group of professionals drawn from Local Authorities, Housing Associations, Fire & Rescue Services, the NHS, Charities, Decluttering Services, Support Groups and people with lived experience. More information about the UKHP can be found at: https://hosting2.northumbria.ac.uk/ukhp/ 

If you wish to find out more about the HRG, please contact Nick Neave at nick.neave@northumbria.ac.uk 

Click here for recent research publications from the HRG