Abstract
Suicidality is significantly more common in autistic adults than the general population, yet the factors that increase risk for suicidality among autistic adults remain largely unknown. We identified characteristics associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts/self-inflicted injury in a U.S. national sample of Medicare-enrolled autistic adults. We conducted a case–control study of autistic adults aged 18–59 years (n = 21,792). Younger age, white race, depression disorders, and psychiatric healthcare utilization were associated with increased odds of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Co-occurring intellectual disability was associated with significantly greater odds of a suicide attempt, but lower odds of suicidal ideation. Findings underscore the need for improved methods to identify ideation prior to attempt among adults with autism and intellectual disability.
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Notes
We refer to adults on the autism spectrum as ‘autistic adults’, in congruence with acceptable standards regarding identity-first language preferred by many diagnosed adults (e.g. Kenny et al. 2016).
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A version of the work contained in this manuscript has been accepted for an oral presentation at the 2019 Occupational Therapy Summit of Scholars.
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BH, TB and HC conceptualized and designed the study, and contributed to interpretation of the data and significant revision of the paper. BH conducted all data analysis.
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The Institutional Review Board of The Ohio State University reviewed and approved this study as exempt, non-human subjects research as this study constituted a secondary analysis of de-identified data.
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Hand, B.N., Benevides, T.W. & Carretta, H.J. Suicidal Ideation and Self-inflicted Injury in Medicare Enrolled Autistic Adults With and Without Co-occurring Intellectual Disability. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3489–3495 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04345-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04345-x