Compulsive Buying Disorder

Compulsive buying disorder is characterized by an obsession with shopping and buying behavior that causes adverse consequences, experienced as a recurring, compelling and irresistible urge to acquire goods of little practical utility or value, resulting in excessive, expensive and time-consuming retail activity typically prompted by negative affect and leading to significant social, personal or financial difficulty; most people with the disorder also meet the criteria for a personality disorder, and it can also occur among people with Parkinson's disease or frontotemporal dementia. The ICD-11 classifies compulsive buying-shopping disorder among other specified impulse control disorders, and several authors have treated it instead as a form of dependence disorder, while the DSM-5 did not include it among substance-related and addictive disorders because of ongoing debate over whether such impulsive behaviors can be conceptualized as addictions.