18. Messi tendency / hoarding / not being able to throw anything away with ADHD
Author: Ulrich Brennecke
Review: Dipl.-Psych. Waldemar Zdero
In ADHD, the inability to throw things away and the tendency to hoard things is more pronounced than in non-affected individuals. Hoarding traits were found in 40.7% of people with ADHD, compared to 21.7% of non-hoarders.1
Hoarding was found in 20% of people with ADHD compared to 2% of those without. Inattention was the most common symptom associated with hoarding, followed by depression and anxiety disorders.2 These 3 symptoms are particularly common in the ADHD-I subtype.
In the ADxS.org symptom test (6,400 participants, as of 12/2021), hoarding correlated primarily with inattention (0.23) and organizational problems (0.23), while anxiety and depression were unremarkable. In addition, there was an equally strong correlation for the externalizing ADHD-HI and the internalizing ADHD-I subtype.
It should be mentioned that some people with ADHD develop extreme orderliness as a coping mechanism against an increased stimulus load caused by disorder.
Kajitani, Tsuchimoto, Nagano, Nakao (2019): Relevance of hoarding behavior and the traits of developmental disorders among university students: a self-reported assessment study. Biopsychosoc Med. 2019 Jun 3;13:13. doi: 10.1186/s13030-019-0156-1. eCollection 2019. ↥
Morein-Zamir, Kasese, Chamberlain, Trachtenberg (2021): Elevated levels of hoarding in ADHD: A special link with inattention. J Psychiatr Res. 2021 Dec 13;145:167-174. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.12.024. PMID: 34923357. n = 398 ↥