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Autism screening and conditional cash transfers in Chile: Using the Quantitative Checklist (Q-CHAT) for early autism detection in a low resource setting.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Roman-Urrestarazu, Andres  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2405-9432
Yáñez, Carolina 
López-Garí, Claudia 
Elgueta, Constanza 

Abstract

Getting a diagnosis of autism can take long, because autism is different across people, but also because it depends on the way it gets diagnosed. This is especially important in poorer countries or in the case of poor people living in wealthier countries that have significant groups of disadvantaged communities. We adapted a 10-item version of the Q-CHAT-25 questionnaire for use in routine health check-ups programme in Chile and recruited 287 participants under the age of three divided into three groups: Controls (125), Developmental Delay (149) and Autism Spectrum Condition (13). Our results show that a short questionnaire for autism screening can be successfully applied in a health-check programme in poor resource settings. Our results show that our questionnaire had good overall performance, not different to its longer version, the Q-CHAT-25. Our questionnaire was autism specific, with good sensitivity and reliability, and is suitable to be used in a screening setting. This study provides evidence that the implementation of Autism Spectrum Condition screening programmes using the Q-CHAT-10 provides value for money and improves diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition in those participating in routine health check-up programmes in developing countries or poor areas of wealthy countries.

Description

Keywords

Chile, Chile Crece Contigo, Q-CHAT, autism spectrum conditions, conditional cash transfer, epidemiology, health checks, screening, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Autistic Disorder, Checklist, Chile, Humans, Infant, Mass Screening, Reproducibility of Results

Journal Title

Autism

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1362-3613
1461-7005

Volume Title

25

Publisher

SAGE Publications
Sponsorship
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: A.R-U. received funding from the Gillings Fellowship in Global Public Health and Autism Research, Grant Award YOG054 to the Cambridge Institute of Public Health (PI Carol Brayne). S.BC. received funding from Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No. 777394. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA and AUTISM SPEAKS, Autistica, SFARI. S.B-C. also received funding from the Autism Research Trust, Autistica, the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.