Satisfaction with friendship support protects autistic youth from the negative effects of peer victimization.

The study used a single item to measure satisfaction with friendship support, which may lack precision. Few participants reported being dissatisfied or neutral about their friendship support, so the full range of satisfaction was not well represented. The sample was recruited from research registries and lacked diversity in terms of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. All participants had an IQ above 70 and could self-report, so findings may not apply to autistic youth with intellectual disability or those who cannot self-report. The study is cross-sectional (implied by the design description of analyzing survey data at one point), so it cannot prove that friendship satisfaction causes reduced depression or that victimization causes increased depression.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the FAR Fund, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Do not conclude that increasing the number of friendships will reduce depression in autistic youth. The study found that satisfaction with support moderated the effect of victimization on depression, but satisfaction itself was not significantly associated with depression when victimization was not considered. Furthermore, this was an observational study of associations, not a test of whether interventions targeting friendship satisfaction improve mental health.