Comorbid atypical autistic traits as a potential risk factor for suicide attempts among adult depressed patients: a case–control study
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BACKGROUND: The present study aims to examine if autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a risk factor for suicide attempts among adult depressed patients and to elucidate the characteristics of suicide attempts in adult depressed patients with ASD. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study. Subjects consisted of 336 retrospectively recruited first-time visit patients to our outpatient clinic with a current major depressive episode; 31 of the 336 patients had attempted suicide. The demographic backgrounds (i.e., age, gender, personal/family history of suicidality); specific psychopathology like bipolarity, agitation, and psychotic features; and comorbidity such as physical diseases, alcohol abuse, cluster B personality disorder, and ASD including pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) were examined as potential risk factors for suicide attempts. We compared these variables between the suicide attempters and non-attempters. In addition, we compared suicide attempters to non-attempters within the ASD group and non-ASD group. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed using the significant independent variables from the comparisons between the suicide attempters and non-attempters, and the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. RESULTS: Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that agitation during a depressive episode (OR = 7.15, 95% CI = 2.88-17.74), past suicidal behaviors (OR = 4.32, 95% CI =1.70-10.98), and comorbid PDD-NOS (OR = 4.04, 95% CI = 1.20-13.54) were significantly associated with suicide attempts. The most prevalent suicidal method was drug overdose (59.1%) among non-ASD attempters while hanging was the most prevalent (44.4%) in ASD attempters. CONCLUSIONS: Depressed adults with comorbid atypical autistic traits are at higher risk for suicide attempts and may engage in methods that are more lethal.
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Traits characteristic of autism are significantly associated with suicidality in those with and without ASC diagnosis.
“Traits characteristic of autism are also significantly associated with suicidality in those with [2], and without ASC diagnosis [16–18].”
From Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults (2018) · cites this paper as [18]
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- Authors
- Takara, K., & Kondo, T.
- Affiliations
- University of the Ryukyus (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Takara, Kiyoharu
- ORCID
- Kondo, Tsuyoshi
- Venue
- Annals of General Psychiatry
- Published
- 2014-10-16
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 33-33
- ISSN
- 1744-859X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4201698
- OpenAlex
- W1986606080
- Cited by
- 93
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 6.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annals of General Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of the Ryukyus academic repository (University of the Ryukyus) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- University oh the Ryukyus Repository (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (25461736)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, suicide attempts, major depressive episode, comorbidities, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, agitation, suicide methods, drug overdose, hanging, risk factors
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