Rubenstein Eric, Chawla Devika
University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, Chapel Hill, NC.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Waisman Center, Madison, WI.
J Child Fam Stud. 2018 Jun;27(6):1705-1720. doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1026-3. Epub 2018 Feb 22.
The broader autism phenotype (BAP) is a collection of sub-diagnostic autistic traits more common in families of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than in the general population. BAP is a latent construct that can be defined using different domains, measured using multiple instruments, and reported using different techniques. Therefore, estimates of BAP may vary greatly across studies. Our objective was to systematically review studies that reported occurrence of BAP in parents of children with ASD in order to quantify and describe heterogeneity in estimates. We systematically searched PubMed and Scopus using PRISMA guidelines for studies quantifying percentage of parents of children with ASD who had BAP We identified 41 studies that measured BAP in parents of children with ASD. These studies used eight different instruments, four different forms of data collection, and had a wide range of sample sizes (N=4 to N=3299). Percentage with BAP ranged from 2.6% to 80%. BAP was more prevalent in fathers than mothers. Parental BAP may be an important tool for parsing heterogeneity in ASD etiology and for developing parent-mediated ASD interventions. However, the variety in measurement instruments and variability in study samples limits our ability to synthesize estimates. To improve measurement of BAP and increase consistency across studies, universal methods should be accepted and adopted across studies. A more consistent approach to BAP measurement may enable efficient etiologic research that can be meta-analyzed and may allow for a larger evidence base that can be used to account for BAP when developing parent-mediated interventions.
广泛自闭症表型（BAP）是一系列亚诊断性自闭症特征的集合，在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者家庭中比在普通人群中更为常见。BAP是一种潜在结构，可以用不同领域来定义，用多种工具进行测量，并使用不同技术进行报告。因此，不同研究对BAP的估计可能差异很大。我们的目标是系统回顾报告ASD患儿父母中BAP发生率的研究，以便量化和描述估计值的异质性。我们按照PRISMA指南在PubMed和Scopus中系统检索了量化ASD患儿父母中具有BAP的百分比的研究。我们确定了41项测量ASD患儿父母BAP的研究。这些研究使用了八种不同的工具、四种不同的数据收集形式，样本量范围广泛（N = 4至N = 3299）。具有BAP的百分比范围为2.6%至80%。BAP在父亲中比在母亲中更普遍。父母的BAP可能是剖析ASD病因异质性以及开发父母介导的ASD干预措施的重要工具。然而，测量工具的多样性和研究样本的变异性限制了我们综合估计值的能力。为了改进BAP的测量并提高研究之间的一致性，应在各项研究中接受并采用通用方法。采用更一致的BAP测量方法可能有助于开展可进行荟萃分析的高效病因学研究，并可能形成更大的证据基础，以便在开发父母介导的干预措施时考虑BAP。
