The Vulnerability Experiences Quotient (VEQ): A Study of Vulnerability, Mental Health and Life Satisfaction in Autistic Adults.

The study measured everything at one time, so it cannot show whether negative life events caused anxiety, depression, or lower life satisfaction, or whether mental health difficulties made negative events more likely. The autistic and control groups were not matched for age or gender; after adjusting for these, some individual event differences disappeared, and one childhood sexual abuse difference became stronger. Participants were recruited online through autism and psychology databases, charity websites, and social media, and only 3% of the autistic group had intellectual disability, far below the estimated 55% in the autism population, so findings may not apply to more disabled autistic adults. The control group reported high mental health diagnoses and higher AQ scores than expected in the general population, which may make group differences look smaller, not larger. The vulnerability checklist total score treats no opportunity as no experience and replaces missing answers with 0, which may underestimate vulnerability for people who have not had certain life opportunities. Rare events such as child protection investigations, custody loss, criminal charges, and imprisonment had too few cases to detect differences reliably. The study did not test whether any intervention reduced vulnerability, so it cannot guide treatment efficacy.

Funding was from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking and the National Institute for Health Research. No other conflict declaration appears in the paper.

Do not read the mediation analysis as proof that negative life events caused anxiety, depression, or lower life satisfaction. The study measured all variables at one time, so it cannot show direction, and some item differences changed after age and sex adjustment.