Research by Dr Dagmara Dimitriou, Dr Liz Halstead and Autistic Advocate reveals that the COVID-19 lo
- Aug 26, 2020
- 1 min read
Our SERL lab director Dr Dagmara Dimitriou and deputy director Dr Liz Halstead, recently conducted the survey on 583 autistic adults during lockdown. Most of the responders had pre-existing mental health conditions (85%) but these had become worse during the lockdown. Also, 23% of autistic people reported that the lockdown has caused new mental health problems.
Sleep appears to have become worse for those surveyed, with 79% reporting sleep disturbances and feeling anxious more than before (44%). Despite the number of people struggling, 73% reported a lack of healthcare or social support with 22% indicating that they feel abandoned. Dagmara concluded with: “Urgent work is required to improve the co-operation between community health services and mental-health-care providers as well as accessibility of different types of provision such as telehealth. We recommend including autistic adults to form collaborative team to strengthen support and treatment pathways becoming interwoven and integral in existing services.”
This is vital work from our lab investigating the consequences of lockdown and COVID-19 on autistic adults. For the full article please click here.
This is sobering but incredibly important research. The statistic that 85% of respondents experienced worsening of pre-existing mental health conditions, and 79% reported sleep disturbances, highlights just how severely the disruption of routine and the baseline anxiety of the pandemic impacted the autistic community. The feeling of being "abandoned" by healthcare systems is a tragic reality for too many neurodivergent adults.
The call for collaborative, interwoven support pathways that actively include autistic voices is exactly what is needed. Mental health services often fail autistic adults because they don't understand the underlying neurotype driving the anxiety or sleep issues.
For adults who are trying to articulate these needs to healthcare providers—or those who are realizing their own severe reactions to pandemic…