Current and lifetime somatic symptom burden among transition-aged autistic young adults.
Fatigue, sleep problems, and menstrual issues affect >60% of transition-aged autistic adults—screen for these at every visit.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 290 autistic college students to fill out a health checklist. They wanted to know which body symptoms bother these young adults most.
The survey covered both current and lifetime problems. Students rated items like fatigue, sleep trouble, and menstrual pain.
What they found
More than six in ten students said fatigue, sleep issues, or menstrual problems were a big deal. Female students were two to four times more likely to flag each symptom.
The takeaway: body complaints are common in autistic students, and sex differences are large.
How this fits with other research
Scott et al. (2023) followed the same age group across a school year. They saw mental-health scores stay flat, but coping styles shift. J et al. add the body side: symptoms are already high at baseline.
DeFulio et al. (2011) found fatigue links to autism traits in younger kids with rare syndromes. The new data show fatigue remains a top concern in autistic young adults without syndromes.
Liew et al. (2015) showed autistic traits predict anxiety and depression in typical students. J et al. flip the lens: diagnosed autistic students report heavy body symptom loads, pointing to a shared internalizing thread.
Why it matters
If you work with autistic teens or adults, add three quick questions to every visit: "Any fatigue? Sleep trouble? Period problems?" These items pop up in most clients and hit females hardest. Flagging them early can guide medical referrals and keep students in class.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Somatic symptoms are the most common cause of outpatient medical visits in the general population, yet their presence and severity in individuals on the autism spectrum has rarely been studied. We sought to assess the prevalence, impact, and clinical correlates of 14 commonly reported somatic symptoms in a sample of 290 transition-aged autistic young adults (mean [SD] age: 23.10 [2.38] years, range 18-26; 76.7% diagnosed with autism before age 18) recruited from the Simons Foundation SPARK participant pool. A modified version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 was used to assess somatic symptom prevalence/impact, along with measures of depression, anxiety, autistic traits, and quality of life. Somatic symptom burden was much higher in autistic young adults than previously reported in the general population. The most commonly reported current symptoms were fatigue (72.8%), sleep problems (69.0%), and menstrual problems (61.4% of females). Moderate or severe symptom levels were reported by 53.9% of females and 18.75% of males in our cohort, with the odds of females endorsing any given symptom being 2-4 times greater than males. Both individual symptoms and total symptom burden were related to higher levels of depression, anxiety, and autistic traits, along with lower quality of life. Despite little research on this topic previously, somatic symptoms are highly prevalent in autistic young adults, particularly women. Future research is needed to investigate links between somatic symptoms, medical and psychiatric morbidity, and health care utilization in the autistic population. LAY SUMMARY: Somatic symptoms (i.e., physical symptoms such as such as pain, weakness, stomachache, or shortness of breath) are highly prevalent in the general population and account for a large proportion of health care costs. However, few studies have investigated how often these symptoms are reported by autistic adults or their associations with other clinical and demographic variables. Based on self-report data from 290 young autistic adults, we found very high rates of bothersome somatic symptoms in this population, with females endorsing all symptoms at substantially higher rates than males. Somatic symptoms were also associated with worse mental health and quality of life, suggesting that they represent an overlooked contributor to poor health outcomes in the autistic adult population.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022 · doi:10.2174/157339711102150702112236