Marquette University, USA.
University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
Autism. 2021 Feb;25(2):545-555. doi: 10.1177/1362361320967789. Epub 2020 Oct 30.
Autistic adults commonly experience mental health concerns including social anxiety and depression, which can have negative effects on their quality of life. It is not completely clear, however, why rates of mental health concerns are so high. Some evidence suggests that social connectedness might play a key role. The goal of this study was to explore links between loneliness, mental health concerns, autism features, and social contact among autistic adults and test whether the links between mental health with autism features and social contact can be explained by loneliness. Researchers in this study collected data using questionnaires completed by 69 autistic young adults. Autistic adults who reported more autism features also reported more social and family loneliness, higher levels of social anxiety and depression, and fewer initiated social contacts. In addition, adults with more social contact initiations were likely to report lower levels of social and family loneliness and social anxiety but not depression. Results showed that the link from social engagement and autism features to social anxiety and depression symptoms could be mostly explained by loneliness. The results of this study expand previous findings by illustrating one factor (loneliness) that might be responsible for the high rates of mental health concerns among adults on the autism spectrum. These findings highlight the importance of studying factors related to mental health concerns among autistic adults and ways to best support social connectedness for the mental well-being of autistic young adults.
自闭症患者通常会经历心理健康问题，包括社交焦虑和抑郁，这会对他们的生活质量产生负面影响。然而，目前尚不清楚为什么心理健康问题的发生率如此之高。一些证据表明，社交联系可能起着关键作用。本研究的目的是探讨自闭症患者的孤独感、心理健康问题、自闭症特征与社交接触之间的联系，并检验自闭症特征与社交接触与心理健康之间的联系是否可以用孤独感来解释。研究人员通过对 69 名自闭症年轻成年人的问卷调查收集数据。报告自闭症特征较多的自闭症患者报告的社交孤独感和家庭孤独感更多，社交焦虑和抑郁程度更高，主动社交接触更少。此外，主动社交接触更多的成年人可能报告的社交孤独感和家庭孤独感以及社交焦虑程度较低，但抑郁程度则没有差异。结果表明，社交参与度和自闭症特征与社交焦虑和抑郁症状之间的联系可以用孤独感来解释。本研究的结果扩展了之前的发现，表明一个因素（孤独感）可能是自闭症谱系人群中心理健康问题高发的原因。这些发现强调了研究自闭症患者心理健康问题相关因素以及为自闭症年轻成年人提供最佳社交支持以促进其心理健康的重要性。
