Sainsbury Willow J, Whitehouse Andrew J O, Woods Lisa, Jiang Terence, Waddington Hannah
Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, NZ Office 117 A Building 114 3a Symonds St Auckland, New Zealand, 1010, New Zealand.
Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, Australia.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2025 Jan 8. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06706-7.
Autistic children have an increased likelihood of anxiety, but more research is needed on the characteristics that predict various types of anxiety in this population.
In this study, we examined a range of child and family predictors of various types of anxiety using a sample of 452 autistic children from the Australian Autism Biobank. We used logistic regression to examine child and family predictors of four common types of anxiety in autistic children: generalised, phobic, separation, and social anxiety.
We found that 62.8% of children in this sample had symptoms of at least one type of anxiety. Poor quality sleep habits were the only predictive factor consistently identified across all anxiety symptom types. Specific to children with indicated generalised, separation, and phobic anxiety symptoms were the predictive factors of being older than five years, and specific to generalised and social anxiety were the predictive factors of higher cognitive abilities. Maternal anxiety was also a predictive factor in indicated children's separation anxiety.
These findings can help inform the provision of more targeted support for autistic people, particularly the interaction of poor sleep habits and anxiety symptoms.
自闭症儿童患焦虑症的可能性增加，但对于预测该人群各种类型焦虑症的特征，还需要更多研究。
在本研究中，我们使用来自澳大利亚自闭症生物样本库的452名自闭症儿童样本，考察了一系列儿童及家庭因素对各种类型焦虑症的预测作用。我们采用逻辑回归分析来考察自闭症儿童四种常见焦虑症类型（广泛性焦虑症、恐惧症、分离焦虑症和社交焦虑症）的儿童及家庭预测因素。
我们发现，该样本中62.8%的儿童至少有一种焦虑症症状。不良的睡眠习惯是在所有焦虑症症状类型中始终被确定的唯一预测因素。对于表现出广泛性、分离性和恐惧症焦虑症状的儿童，年龄大于五岁是预测因素；对于广泛性和社交焦虑症，较高的认知能力是预测因素。母亲的焦虑也是儿童分离焦虑症的一个预测因素。
这些发现有助于为自闭症患者提供更有针对性的支持，特别是不良睡眠习惯与焦虑症状之间的相互作用。
