Mental health-related hospitalizations among adolescents and emerging adults with autism in the United States: A retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of national hospital discharge data.
Autistic youth are hospitalized for mental-health crises far more than peers—use outpatient visits to prevent the spiral.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at every hospital discharge in the US for kids and young adults .
They pulled national records to count how many stays listed both autism and a mental-health reason.
The study ran from 2016-2020 and covered millions of cases.
What they found
Autistic teens and young adults land in the hospital for mental-health crises 11 times more often than peers with other long-term health issues.
These stays cost far more and last longer than typical medical admissions.
The data point to big gaps in outpatient care before the crisis hits.
How this fits with other research
Hudson et al. (2012) surveyed special autism-only psychiatry units and found kids stayed 42 42 days on average. The new 2023 numbers now show this is a national pattern, not just a few specialty wards.
Shepherd et al. (2021) used the same US claims lens but looked at autistic adults 65 and older. Together the two papers trace high inpatient use across the whole lifespan.
Hatzell et al. (2026) found sleep problems doubled the odds of suicidal thoughts and self-injury in autistic youth. Poor sleep may be one pathway that leads to the hospitalizations counted in the 2023 study.
Why it matters
If you serve autistic teens or young adults, treat every outpatient session as crisis prevention. Screen for sleep issues, mood swings, and self-injury early. Build rapid-response plans with families and psychiatrists so that ER visits become rare, not routine.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autistic young people are more likely to have mental health conditions, like depression and bipolar disorder, than people without autism. These mental health issues sometimes lead to hospitalizations, which can be expensive and traumatic. Because of this, we wanted to understand mental health-related hospitalizations among autistic young people aged 10-20. We found that the main mental health reasons for the hospitalization of autistic young people were neurodevelopmental, disruptive, depressive, and bipolar disorders. These hospitalizations cost an average of US$7401.23 per stay, for a total of US$106 million in service delivery costs in 2016. Mental health-related hospitalizations were compared between young people with autism, young people with complex and chronic conditions, and young people with no chronic conditions. Autistic young people were almost 11 times more likely to be hospitalized for mental health reasons than young people with complex and chronic conditions, and two times more likely than young people with no complex and chronic conditions. We believe the United States needs better community-based mental health care for young people with autism.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221143592