Psychometric properties of the Hoarding Rating Scale-Interview

Abstract

The present study tested the psychometric properties of an expanded version of the Hoarding Rating Scale (HRS-I), a semistructured interview for hoarding disorder (HD). Eighty-seven adults with HD and 44 healthy control (HC) participants were assessed using the HRS-I and completed a battery of self-report measures of HD severity, negative affect, and functional impairment. All interviews were audio recorded. From the HD participants, 21 were randomly selected for inter-rater reliability (IRR) analysis and 11 for test-retest reliability (TRR) analysis. The HRS-I showed excellent internal consistency (α = 0.87). IRR and TRR in the HD sample were good (intra-class coefficients = 0.81 and 0.85, respectively). HRS-I scores correlated strongly with scores on the self-report Saving Inventory-Revised (SI-R); partial correlations indicated that the HRS-I clutter, difficulty discarding, and acquiring items correlated significantly and at least moderately with corresponding SI-R subscales, when controlling for the other SI-R subscales. The HD group scored significantly higher on all items than did the HC group, with large effect sizes (d = 1.28–6.58). ROC analysis showed excellent sensitivity (1.00) and specificity (1.00) for distinguishing the HD and HC groups with a cutoff score of 11. Results and limitations are discussed in light of prior research.