Alves Ana Luíza Costa, de Paula Jonas Jardim, de Miranda Débora Marques, Romano-Silva Marco Aurélio
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Medicina, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Medicina Molecular, Belo Horizonte MG, Brazil.
Dement Neuropsychol. 2022 Apr-Jun;16(2):244-248. doi: 10.1590/1980-5764-DN-2021-0081. Epub 2022 Apr 29.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social interaction and inflexible behaviors/interests. To quantify ASD traits in adults with preserved intelligence, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) was developed, which is a self-report instrument and one of the most used and recommended tools.
We aimed to present a descriptive analysis of the AQ in a sample of Brazilian adults with neurotypical development (n=385) and investigate how the scale performs in a clinical subsample (n=33).
We recruited 1,024 participants. They answered the Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20), AQ, and about their psychiatric record. Then, we selected 385 participants without any psychiatric diagnosis to describe the distribution of the ASD traits. To investigate the AQ performance, we evaluated 33 adults with ASD and 19 adults with neurotypical development from the total sample (n=1,024).
ASD traits were normally distributed in the population, with high internal consistency. Of a total of 91 men, volunteers with 32 points (clinical cutoff point) or more scored higher than 93% of the control sample. Of a total of 294 women, those who got a clinical score on the scale scored higher than 97%. In the clinical subsample (n=33), the positive predictive value (PPV) of the AQ was 0.84, and the negative predictive value (NPV) was 0.7.
The study population has a different profile compared to the original study regarding the AQ scale. ASD traits were normally distributed in the neurotypical sample, and the scale seems to have a satisfactory performance to predict ASD. Future studies are required to adequate the use of the scale in the Brazilian population.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的特征是社交互动困难和行为/兴趣刻板。为了量化智力正常的成年人的ASD特征，开发了自闭症谱系商数（AQ），这是一种自我报告工具，也是最常用和推荐的工具之一。
我们旨在对一组巴西神经典型发育的成年人（n = 385）的AQ进行描述性分析，并研究该量表在临床亚样本（n = 33）中的表现。
我们招募了1024名参与者。他们回答了自我报告问卷-20（SRQ-20）、AQ以及关于他们的精神病史。然后，我们选择了385名没有任何精神疾病诊断的参与者来描述ASD特征的分布。为了研究AQ的表现，我们从总样本（n = 1024）中评估了33名患有ASD的成年人和19名神经典型发育的成年人。
ASD特征在人群中呈正态分布，具有较高的内部一致性。在总共91名男性志愿者中，得分32分（临床临界值）及以上的志愿者得分高于对照组样本的93%。在总共294名女性中，量表临床得分者得分高于97%。在临床亚样本（n = 33）中，AQ的阳性预测值（PPV）为0.84，阴性预测值（NPV）为0.7。
与关于AQ量表的原始研究相比，本研究人群具有不同的特征。ASD特征在神经典型样本中呈正态分布，该量表在预测ASD方面似乎具有令人满意的表现。未来需要开展研究，以在巴西人群中适当使用该量表。
