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project summary
Autistic people (both children and adults) experience high rates of mental health problems, but autism is often reported being missed in mainstream mental health services, and mental health care is rarely tailored to their needs and often reported to be unsuitable. To inform policy in this area, we conducted a pair of co-produced systematic reviews of literature on strategies that have been developed to improve access, experiences of care and mental health outcomes for autistic adults, and children and young people. Within the scope of our reviews were bespoke strategies for autistic people with mental health problems, adaptations of standard interventions and services, and strategies to improve identification of autism in mental health services. The questions we investigated were:
- What strategies have been developed to improve mental health treatment and services for autistic people, and what is the acceptability and feasibility of these strategies?
- How effective are strategies that have been developed to improve mental health care for autistic people?
The protocol for our review is available .听A working group including MHPRU researchers, researchers with relevant lived experience, policy makers and experts in this field have worked together on this review. Partners include NHS England鈥檚 National Autism Team and the charity Autistica.
Dissemination
- Findings have now been communicated to relevant teams at NHS England and NICE, as well as presented to a wider audience during the MHPRU research festival (video available here)
- The findings for out review on adults is available as a听
- The findings for children and young people is avaiable here:听
- A blog on our work was featured on Mental Elf:听