Is Camouflaging Autistic Traits Associated with Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours? Expanding the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide in an Undergraduate Student Sample

Abstract

The current study explored whether people who camouflage autistic traits are more likely to experience thwarted belongingness and suicidality, as predicted by the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide (IPTS). 160 undergraduate students (86.9% female, 18-23 years) completed a cross-sectional online survey from 8th February to 30th May 2019 including selfreport measures of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, autistic traits, depression, anxiety, camouflaging autistic traits, and lifetime suicidality. Results suggest that camouflaging autistic traits is associated with increased risk of experiencing thwarted belongingness and lifetime suicidality. It is important for suicide theories such as the IPTS to include variables relevant to the broader autism phenotype, to increase applicability of models to both autistic and non-autistic people.

Measurement Properties of the Suicidal Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised in Autistic Adults

“…The cognitive style and experiences of autistic people may affect the interpretation and thus validity of suicidality assessment tools such as the SBQ-R (Cassidy et al 2018a ). For example, communication differences (Alkhaldi et al 2019 ; Jaswal and Akhtar 2019 ; Mitchell et al 2019 ; Sheppard et al 2016 ), lack of social connections (Cassidy in press; Cassidy et al 2019 ; Hedley et al 2017 ; Orsmond et al 2013 ; Pelton and Cassidy 2017 ; Pelton et al in press) and alexithymia (Bird et al. 2010 ) could all result in reduced endorsement of communicating suicide threat to others, without necessarily indicating decreased experience of suicidality (Cassidy et al 2018a ).…”

Key ethical questions for research during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Finally, providing mood mitigation to all participants is an important method to boost mood, particularly when participants have been asked to consider anxiety-provoking questions about COVID-19 and answer sensitive questions about selfharm or suicide. A number of methods including exam howlers, 5 cute animal pictures, 4 interactive websites, 6 and so-called doodle pages 7 have been shown to work for young people. The ethics of voucher lotteries and other incentives for participants in studies on suicide and self-harm have been questioned by lived experience authors.…”

Development and Validation of the Suicide Behaviours Questionnaire – Autism Spectrum Conditions in Autistic, Possibly Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults.

“…Given the lack of previous suicidality research including possibly autistic people, we explored whether and how rates of suicidality differed between autistic and possibly autistic adults. We also hypothesised that total scores on the SBQ-ASC would be signi cantly correlated with risk markers for suicidality in autistic and non-autistic people identi ed from previous research (autistic traits, camou aging autistic traits, depression, anxiety, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. We also hypothesised that the SBQ-ASC would be more strongly correlated with the original version of the tool (given they both measure the same construct -suicidality), compared to other proximal risk markers for suicidality (e.g.…”