Autistic traits in adults who have attempted suicide.
Gareth Richards, Rebecca Kenny, Sarah Griffiths and 6 others
PMID 31198526WHAT IT FOUND
Adults who reported more than one suicide attempt scored higher on autistic traits than those reporting one attempt.
When age, sex and diagnosed or suspected conditions were considered, the link was not clear.
Key findings
01Adults who had attempted suicide more than once had significantly higher total autistic trait scores than adults who had attempted suicide once.
02After controlling for age, sex, and diagnosed or suspected conditions, the association between total autistic trait scores and repeated attempts was not clear.
03Even after excluding participants with diagnosed or suspected autism, 40.6% of the remaining participants scored 26 or more on the autistic traits questionnaire.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Participants self-reported suicide attempts, diagnoses, and suspected conditions, and none of this was independently verified. The study used single questions about whether participants had ever attempted suicide and whether they had attempted once or more than once. Recruitment was through online adverts, especially social media, so people who saw the adverts may not represent adults who have attempted suicide. The sample was mostly female: 110 of 132 participants were female and 17 were male, so results cannot be separated for males and females. Age was missing for 34 participants, and the analysis had to replace missing ages with the median. The study measured autistic traits at one time point in people who had already attempted suicide, so it cannot show whether autistic traits came before the attempts or were influenced by suicidal distress. The AQ is a questionnaire for autistic traits, not a diagnostic test for autism.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care East of England at Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Autistica, the Autism Research Trust, the Medical Research Council, and the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autistic traits cause repeated suicide attempts, or that screening with the AQ identifies suicide risk. The study is cross-sectional and self-reported, and the adjusted association was not clear (P = 0.052).