Laut einer neuen Studie berichten autistische Erwachsene unabhängig von früheren traumatischen Erfahrungen häufiger über suizidales Verhalten und psychische Belastungen.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/autistic-adults-have-an-increased-risk-of-suicidal-behaviours-irrespective-of-trauma
3 Kommentare
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.70137
From the linked article:
**Autistic adults have an increased risk of suicidal behaviours, irrespective of trauma**
**Autistic people are more likely to report suicide-related behaviours and psychological distress irrespective of previous traumatic experiences, according to new research** from the University of Cambridge.
Additionally, the study shows for the first time that higher levels of trauma are associated with an increased likelihood of reporting suicide-related behaviours and psychological distress in autistic people — as is the case in the general population.
Given that autistic people are recognised as a priority group for suicide prevention in the UK, these findings have important implications for national suicide prevention strategies. The results are published today in the journal Autism Research.
As many as 1 in 4 autistic people reports suicide attempts across their lifetime and autistic people have a higher likelihood of adverse life experiences. However, only one prior study has looked at the link between lifetime trauma and suicidality (the spectrum of experiences related to suicide, from suicidal thoughts to attempts), but it did not differentiate between suicidal thoughts and attempts. This approach overlooks evidence suggesting that the risk factors for suicide ideation and suicide attempts may differ.
This new study is the first to investigate how lifetime trauma is independently associated with specific outcomes – including lifetime self-harm, suicide attempts, suicide plans, having a mental health condition that impacts daily life, and regularly using substances such as alcohol as a coping mechanism – in autistic people. It is also the first to show that different types of traumas may be associated with different types of suicide-related behaviours and psychological distress.
The “irrespective of trauma” bit is doing a lot of work here. Statistically controlling for reported trauma doesn’t mean trauma isn’t important, it just means there’s an additional risk that isn’t fully explained by it. Given autistic people are more likely to experience bullying, social exclusion, unstable employment, sensory overload, etc., it’s not shocking the baseline distress is higher even before you stack trauma on top.
To me this reads more like a mismatch problem than a “defect” problem. You put a nervous system that’s wired a bit differently into environments designed by and for non-autistic people, then add masking to survive socially, and you get chronic stress almost by construction. I’d be curious whether they looked at things like late vs early diagnosis, camouflaging, or access to accommodations, because those seem like plausible levers that could matter as much as classic “trauma” in the PTSD sense.
If findings like this keep stacking up, the obvious policy angle is not just “more crisis hotlines,” but routine autism-informed mental health care, especially around transitions (school to work, moving out, etc.), and screening that doesn’t wait for someone to already be in a suicidal state before taking them seriously.
A lifetime of being misunderstood likely has that effect. Who are you to define what’s traumatic to another?