Rates of Co-occurring Psychiatric Disorders in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview.

The sample was small and recruited from one university registry, and the authors describe it as a convenience sample with predominantly Caucasian and high SES participants. Only participants with fluent phrase speech and nonverbal IQ above 70 were included, so the findings do not apply to people with ASD who are non-speaking or have intellectual disability. Children and adolescents were assessed by caregiver report, while young adults were assessed by self-report, so the two age groups were not measured in the same way. The young adult MINI did not assess ADHD, although community diagnoses included it, and community-reported rates were higher than MINI-reported rates. Community diagnoses were not verified with detailed documentation, so poor agreement could reflect differences in how diagnoses were made rather than only measurement error. Gender analyses were exploratory because few female participants were included. The study reported current diagnosis rates and agreement, not treatment response, therapy outcomes, or the effect of any intervention.

All named authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not read the high child and adolescent rate as proof that the brief interview should replace clinical assessment. The sample was small, caregiver report was used, and agreement with community diagnoses was poor.