Few instruments are available to assess compulsive hoarding and severity of clutter. Accuracy of assessment is important to understanding the clinical significance of the problem. To overcome problems associated with over- and under-reporting of hoarding symptoms, the clutter image rating (CIR) was developed. This pictorial scale contains nine equidistant photographs of severity of clutter representing each of three main rooms of most people’s homes: living room, kitchen, and bedroom. The psychometric properties of this measure were examined in two studies. Internal consistency, test–retest, and interobserver reliabilities were good and convergent validity with other questionnaire and interview measures was also good. The CIR correlated more strongly with measures of clutter than with other hoarding and psychopathology scales. The CIR’s very brief pictorial assessment method makes it useful in clinical and treatment contexts for measuring the clutter dimension of compulsive hoarding.
