Identifying the clinical needs and patterns of health service use of adolescent girls and women with autism spectrum disorder.
Girls and women with ASD use psychiatry and the ER more than males, so build extra mental-health safeguards into their plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tint et al. (2017) asked teenage girls and women with autism about the health care they use.
They used a survey. The goal was to map what services females with ASD need and actually get.
What they found
Girls and women use most services at the same rate as males with ASD.
Two places stood out: they visit psychiatry and the emergency room more often.
How this fits with other research
Rutherford et al. (2016) showed girls are referred for diagnosis later than boys. Later entry can pile up unmet needs, so more psychiatry and ER trips make sense.
Liu et al. (2017) also found girls with ASD land in the ER more often, especially older teens. The two 2017 studies back each other up.
Bottini et al. (2025) adds a twist: clinicians rate the exact same traits as more severe when the case is labeled female. This bias may delay the right care and push girls toward crisis services, matching Ami’s higher ER numbers.
Why it matters
If you serve females with ASD, plan for stronger mental-health and crisis support. Add check-ins about mood, self-harm, and caregiver stress. Track referral age; if a teen girl is new to your caseload, review past ER visits and current meds. Quick access to psychiatry may prevent a crisis trip later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Girls and women in the general population present with a distinct profile of clinical needs and use more associated health services compared to boys and men; however, research focused on health service use patterns among girls and women with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is limited. In the current study, caregivers of 61 adolescent girls and women with ASD and 223 boys and men with ASD completed an online survey. Descriptive analyses were conducted to better understand the clinical needs and associated service use patterns of girls and women with ASD. Sex/gender comparisons were made of individuals' clinical needs and service use. Adolescent girls and women with ASD had prevalent co-occurring mental and physical conditions and parents reported elevated levels of caregiver strain. Multiple service use was common across age groups, particularly among adolescent girls and women with intellectual disability. Overall, few sex/gender differences emerged, although a significantly greater proportion of girls and women accessed psychiatry and emergency department services as compared to boys and men. Though the current study is limited by its use of parent report and small sample size, it suggests that girls and women with ASD may share many of the same high clinical needs and patterns of services use as boys and men with ASD. Areas for future research are discussed to help ensure appropriate support is provided to this understudied population. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1558-1566. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1806