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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Two types of squalor
— findings from a factor analysis of the environmental cleanliness and clutter scale (ECCS) | | Author(s) | John Snowdon, Graeme Halliday, Glenn E Hunt |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 25, no 7, July 2013 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, July 2013 |
| Pages | pp 1191-1198 |
| Source | journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Hoarding ; Neglect [care] ; Self care capacity ; Cleanliness incapacity ; Measurement. |
| Annotation | Most people who collect and hoard and then have difficulty discarding items do not live in squalour, even though accumulation of hoarded items can make cleaning very difficult. Besides. relatively few hoarders fulfil proposed criteria for `hoarding disorder.' The present study aimed to examine the overlap between hoarding and squalour among people referred because of unacceptable living conditions. Ongoing collection of data by a Squalour Project team, including ratings on the Environmental Cleanliness and Clutter Scale (ECCS), allowed (1) description of characteristics of cases and (2) examination of ratings of uncleanliness, and of the effect of accumulation of items or material on access within dwellings. Principal component analysis was used to examine latent variables underlying the ECCS. The mean age of the referred occupants (108 male, 95 female) was 61.9 years. The mean ECCS score in 186 rated cases was 18.5. Factor analysis of ECCS data showed a two-factor solution as the most plausible. Factor 1, comprising seven squalour items, accounted for 33.7% of the variance. Factor 2 comprised reduced accessibility and accumulation of items of little value (variance 17.6%). Accumulation of rubbish loaded equally on the two factors. High levels of squalour and/or accumulation were recorded in 105 (56%) of the 186 dwellings. One-third scored high on accumulation/hoarding, while 38% scored high on squalour; 15% scored high on both squalour and accumulation. A quarter of those scoring high on squalour scored low on hoarding/accumulation. Thes findings show that the ECCS is useful when describing whether referred cases show high levels of squalour, hoarding, or both. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-130628215 A |
| Classmark | EPH: QNR: CA: CAH: 3R |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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