A meta-ethnography of autistic people's experiences of social camouflaging and its relationship with mental health.

This is a qualitative synthesis, so it describes experiences and possible mechanisms, not proof that camouflaging causes anxiety, depression, burnout or suicide. The review did not test interventions, so it cannot tell therapists whether reducing camouflaging helps or harms mental health. The included samples were mostly White, and many studies did not report ethnicity, sexuality, education or employment, so the findings may not apply to autistic people with other identities. Several studies included only autistic people of average intelligence or above, so it says little about autistic people with learning disabilities. Two studies used the same participant sample, so the number of studies does not equal the number of independent samples. The review included only English studies and did not use quality appraisal to exclude studies; seven of 13 studies did not sufficiently consider author positionality.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest and no financial support.

Do not read this as proof that camouflaging causes poor mental health or that therapists should stop it. The synthesis reports experiences and possible mechanisms, and some participants said camouflaging was helpful or less harmful than not camouflaging.