Autism and anxiety: are key diagnostic 'deficit criteria' actually effective strategies for the self-management of anxiety in autistic adults?

自闭症和焦虑：关键的诊断“缺陷标准”实际上是自闭症成人自我管理焦虑的有效策略吗？

• 批准号: 2432211
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of the West of England
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2432211
• 关键词: Autism; anxiety; key; diagnostic; deficit

AIMThe aim is to explore whether key autism diagnostic criteria, often seen as deficit traits or behaviours, are actually effective strategies for reducing anxiety in autistic individuals. For instance, "persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction," "restricted, repetitive patterns" and "insistence on sameness" may all be necessary strategies in reducing levels of novel or challenging stimuli to be processed and thus, reducing anxiety.RESEARCH QUESTIONS1. Are 'spending time alone,' 'following routines' and 'creating or finding a preferred sensory environment' strategies which autistic adults use to reduce anxiety?2. How do autistic adults use these strategies in their day-to-day life?3. Is there a correlation between using these strategies and self-reported anxiety levels?METHODOLOGYThis proposal is for an exploratory sequential study within a participatory framework in order to actively involve stakeholder individuals in the research; generating evidence which may be viewed as more credible to community members, and so more likely to bring about change. While the student will have a reflexive stance as an autistic researcher, additional stakeholder input throughout the study design is important for the validity and reach of this project. An initial qualitative study will explore participants' previous experiences of using the outlined strategies and inform quantitative work designed to measure the effectiveness of prioritising these strategies.Depending on participatory group input, qualitative data will be collected from 15 recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews, and/or researcher directed written diaries to explore how and why autistic people might spend time alone, follow routines and create or find preferred sensory environments to reduce anxiety. The sample size is large enough to demonstrate patterns across the dataset but small enough to focus on individual experiences. Autism research studies, both qualitative and quantitative, commonly recruit participants via social media where the range and diversity of genders, ages, ethnicities and incomes are likely to be varied. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data will inform development of an online questionnaire developed with the participatory group to measure how effective adult autistic participants feel the outlined strategies are in reducing anxiety. This questionnaire, repeated twice at two-monthly intervals to compare results, will incorporate the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) as used by other studies with autistic adults for its reliability and validity. 250 participants will be recruited, with an expected drop-off of 50%, to have 120 completed surveys, similarly to other studies with autistic adults. To increase the educational diversity of participants a range of options such as read-aloud features may be offered, in line with recommended practice-based guidelines for including autistic adults in research. Responses to survey questions will be summarised using descriptive statistics. To address the question of correlations between the outlined strategies and self-reported anxiety, the questionnaire results will be analysed using multivariate regression, controlling for potential confounders such as age, gender and education.

目的是探索关键的自闭症诊断标准（通常被视为缺陷特征或行为）是否实际上是减少自闭症患者焦虑的有效策略。例如，“社交沟通和社交互动中的持续缺陷”、“受限、重复的模式”和“坚持同一性”可能都是减少待处理的新奇或挑战性刺激水平的必要策略，从而减少焦虑。自闭症成人使用“花时间独处”、“遵循惯例”和“创造或寻找首选的感官环境”策略来减少焦虑吗？2。自闭症成人如何在日常生活中使用这些策略？3.使用这些策略和自我报告的焦虑水平之间是否存在相关性？方法学本提案是在参与框架内进行探索性序贯研究，以便积极让利益相关者个人参与研究；生成可能被社区成员视为更可信的证据，因此更有可能带来变革。虽然学生将拥有作为自闭症研究人员的反思立场，但整个研究设计过程中利益相关者的额外投入对于该项目的有效性和影响力非常重要。最初的定性研究将探索参与者以前使用概述策略的经验，并为旨在衡量优先考虑这些策略的有效性的定量工作提供信息。根据参与小组的输入，将从 15 次记录和转录的半结构化访谈和/或研究人员指导的书面日记中收集定性数据，以探索自闭症患者如何以及为何会独处、遵循常规并创建或找到首选的感官环境来减少自闭症患者的症状。 焦虑。样本量足够大，可以展示整个数据集中的模式，但又足够小，可以专注于个人体验。自闭症研究，无论是定性还是定量，通常通过社交媒体招募参与者，其中性别、年龄、种族和收入的范围和多样性可能各不相同。对定性数据的主题分析将为与参与小组一起开发在线调查问卷提供信息，以衡量成年自闭症参与者认为概述的策略在减少焦虑方面的效果如何。该问卷每两个月重复两次以比较结果，将纳入其他针对自闭症成人的研究所使用的抑郁、焦虑和压力量表 (DASS-21)，以确保其可靠性和有效性。将招募 250 名参与者（预计下降 50%）来完成 120 份调查，与其他针对成人自闭症患者的研究类似。为了增加参与者的教育多样性，可以提供一系列选项，例如朗读功能，符合将自闭症成人纳入研究的推荐的基于实践的指南。将使用描述性统计总结对调查问题的答复。为了解决概述的策略与自我报告的焦虑之间的相关性问题，将使用多元回归分析问卷结果，控制年龄、性别和教育等潜在的混杂因素。