Autism spectrum disorders as a risk factor for adolescent self-harm: a retrospective cohort study of 113,286 young people in the UK.
Authors
Widnall, Emily
Polling, Catherine
Velupillai, Sumithra
Jewell, Amelia
Dutta, Rina
Simonoff, Emily
Stewart, Robert
Gilbert, Ruth
Hotopf, Matthew
Hayes, Richard D
Downs, Johnny
Publication Date
2022-04-29Journal Title
BMC Med
ISSN
1741-7015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Volume
20
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Widnall, E., Epstein, S., Polling, C., Velupillai, S., Jewell, A., Dutta, R., Simonoff, E., et al. (2022). Autism spectrum disorders as a risk factor for adolescent self-harm: a retrospective cohort study of 113,286 young people in the UK.. BMC Med, 20 (1) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02329-w
Description
Funder: Psychiatry Research Trust Peggy Pollak Research Fellowship in Developmental Psychiatry
Funder: MQ: Transforming Mental Health; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011705
Funder: Psychiatry Research Trust
Funder: NIHR Senior Investigator Award
Funder: NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London (NIHR ARC South London) at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Funder: NIHR
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at particularly high risk of suicide and suicide attempts. Presentation to a hospital with self-harm is one of the strongest risk factors for later suicide. We describe the use of a novel data linkage between routinely collected education data and child and adolescent mental health data to examine whether adolescents with ASD are at higher risk than the general population of presenting to emergency care with self-harm. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on the population aged 11-17 resident in four South London boroughs between January 2009 and March 2013, attending state secondary schools, identified in the National Pupil Database (NPD). Exposure data on ASD status were derived from the NPD. We used Cox regression to model time to first self-harm presentation to the Emergency Department (ED). RESULTS: One thousand twenty adolescents presented to the ED with self-harm, and 763 matched to the NPD. The sample for analysis included 113,286 adolescents (2.2% with ASD). For boys only, there was an increased risk of self-harm associated with ASD (adjusted hazard ratio 2·79, 95% CI 1·40-5·57, P<0·01). Several other factors including school absence, exclusion from school and having been in foster care were also associated with a higher risk of self-harm. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that ASD in boys, and other educational, social and clinical factors, are risk factors for emergency presentation with self-harm in adolescents. These findings are an important step in developing early recognition and prevention programmes.
Keywords
Research Article, Child and adolescent mental health, Epidemiology, Autism spectrum disorders, Education, Data linkage
Sponsorship
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, and a joint infrastructure grant from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity and the Maudsley Charity (BRC-2011-10035)
MRC Pathfinder award (MC_PC_17214)
NIHR Clinician Scientist Fellowship (CS-2018-18-ST2-014)
Welcome Trust Research Training Fellowship (105757/Z/14/Z)
MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship (MR/T001437/1)
Identifiers
s12916-022-02329-w, 2329
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02329-w
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/336616
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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