Citation

Jager-Hyman S, Maddox BB, Crabbe SR, Mandell DS. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10803-020-04441-3

PMID

32240486

Abstract

Autistic individuals experience elevated risk for suicide ideation, attempts, and deaths. Little is known about how clinicians assess risk or intervene with suicidal autistic individuals. We surveyed 121 clinicians about use of suicide prevention practices with autistic and non-autistic clients. Clinicians reported greater self-efficacy in screening for suicide risk among non-autistic clients (p = 0.01). There were no statistically significant differences in whether they used standardized screening measures or in their reported normative pressure or attitudes towards screening. Clinicians reported similar rates of use of Safety Planning, an evidence-based suicide-prevention strategy, across groups, but greater acceptability for non-autistic clients (p < 0.001). These findings have implications for strategies to increase clinicians' adoption of these tools for autistic individuals.

Language: en

Keywords

Autism spectrum disorder; Safety planning intervention; Screening; Suicide