Phase 1

What are the environmental predictors of mental health problems in autistic young people?

This phase of the study will use pre-collected data from large datasets, collected over many time points, to identify factors in the environment that may lead to the development of anxiety and depression for autistic people.

Factors I am particularly interested in, include the transition from primary to secondary school, the quality of friendships, and experiences of bullying at school. I'm also interested in how risks of mental health problems might be different for autistic boys and girls. Other factors may be looked at, depending on the suggestions of the advisory group.

Why is this question important?

Autistic people of all ages experience very high levels of mental health problems, including anxiety and depression. Rates of these mental health conditions are much higher in autistic people than in the general population, and autistic adults are also much more likely to have suicidal thoughts or die from suicide than non-autistic adults.

In order to reduce these conditions, and hopefully to prevent autistic people from developing mental health problems in the future, it is important to identify factors which may cause these conditions earlier in life. If we know what causes mental health problems for autistic people, we can develop ways to address these issues before they lead to more serious mental health problems.

How will this question be answered?

Longitudinal datasets from the South West of England and from Sweden will be analysed to test factors in childhood and adolescence, which predict anxiety and depression in adolescence and adulthood. We will choose which factors to test before running the analyses, based on previous research.

The data we will examine have already been collected - no new data will be collected for this part of the study. However, we will be analysing it in new ways.

These datasets contain information from thousands of young people from birth until adulthood (and data collection is still continuing!). We will compare between people who have received an autism diagnosis at some point and those who never receive a diagnosis of autism, to identify factors which are specific to autism. In other words, we want to see whether there are specific factors which impact autistic young people's mental health, as opposed to factors which affect all young people, whether or not they are autistic. We will also look at people who have high levels of autistic characteristics (as reported by themselves and/or their parents earlier in childhood), but who have not received a diagnosis. This could allow us to identify factors affecting people who are diagnosed later in life, or who are autistic but never receive a diagnosis, as they are also likely to have high levels of mental health problems.

What will you do with the results?

The results of these analyses will be shared with autistic people, their families, researchers, healthcare professionals, and educational professionals. We will share the findings with autistic adults and young people, and their families, through a variety of formats, including visual and written summaries, so they understand more about what they may experience. We will write up the results in scientific journals and present them at conferences, so other researchers can use this knowledge in their own research. We will also share the findings with professionals who work with autistic young people and adults, so they can be more aware of factors leading to mental health problems that they might have some control over.

Finally, I hope to use these findings to co-develop, with autistic adults and young people, interventions to address some of these factors. My aim is to co-develop interventions for school children which teach all children, autistic and non-autistic, about autism and reduce some of the stigma and other negative experiences identified through the research. However this will depend on the exact findings of the research project.