Del Bianco Teresa, Lockwood Estrin Georgia, Tillmann Julian, Oakley Bethany F, Crawley Daisy, San José Cáceres Antonia, Hayward Hannah, Potter Mandy, Mackay Wendy, Smit Petrusa, du Plessis Carlie, Brink Lucy, Springer Priscilla, Odendaal Hein, Charman Tony, Banaschewski Tobias, Baron-Cohen Simon, Bölte Sven, Johnson Mark, Murphy Declan, Buitelaar Jan, Loth Eva, Jones Emily Jh
Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
University of East London, UK.
Autism. 2024 May;28(5):1280-1296. doi: 10.1177/13623613231200297. Epub 2023 Oct 12.
Autistic individuals are more likely than non-autistic individuals to experience a mental health condition in their lifetime, and this includes externalising and internalising symptoms. We know very little about how different environments and family conditions impact these symptoms for autistic individuals. Improving our understanding of these relationships is important so that we can identify individuals who may be in greater need of support. In this article, we seek to improve our understanding of how environmental and family conditions impact externalising and internalising symptoms in autistic and non-autistic people. To do this, we conducted analyses with two cohorts in very different settings - in Europe and South Africa - to ensure our findings are globally representative. We used advanced statistical methods to establish environmental and family conditions that were similar to each other, and which could be combined into specific 'factors'. We found that four similar 'factors' could be identified in the two cohorts. These were distinguished by personal characteristics and environmental conditions of individuals, and were named Person Characteristics, Family System, Parental and Material Resources. Interestingly, just 'Family System' was associated with internalising and externalising symptoms, and this was the same in both cohorts. We also found that having high traits of autism impacted this relationship between Family System and mental health conditions with opposite directions in the two settings. These results show that characteristics in the Family System are associated with internalising and externalising symptoms, and autistic persons are particularly impacted, reinforcing the notion that family stressors are important to consider when implementing policy and practice related to improving the mental health of autistic people.
与非自闭症患者相比，自闭症患者在其一生中更有可能出现心理健康问题，这包括外化症状和内化症状。我们对不同环境和家庭状况如何影响自闭症患者的这些症状知之甚少。增进我们对这些关系的理解很重要，这样我们就能识别出可能更需要支持的个体。在本文中，我们试图增进对环境和家庭状况如何影响自闭症患者及非自闭症患者的外化和内化症状的理解。为此，我们在欧洲和南非这两个截然不同的环境中对两个队列进行了分析，以确保我们的研究结果具有全球代表性。我们使用先进的统计方法来确定彼此相似且可合并为特定“因素”的环境和家庭状况。我们发现，在这两个队列中可以识别出四个相似的“因素”。这些因素以个体的个人特征和环境状况为特征，分别被命名为个人特征、家庭系统、父母及物质资源。有趣的是，只有“家庭系统”与内化和外化症状相关，且在两个队列中都是如此。我们还发现，自闭症特征较高在两种环境下对家庭系统与心理健康状况之间的关系产生了相反方向的影响。这些结果表明，家庭系统中的特征与内化和外化症状相关，自闭症患者尤其受到影响，这强化了在实施与改善自闭症患者心理健康相关的政策和实践时，家庭压力因素很重要这一观点。
