Author(s): Cole Murphy
Mentor(s): Jared Nielsen
Institution BYU
Background: While many young adults experience stress during major life events and mental health challenges, autistic young adults face a higher risk of suicide due to the stress associated with thwarted belonging and perceived burdensomeness, which are risk factors. Additionally, autistic young adults are at a much higher risk of suicide than their non-autistic peers, including in the state of Utah. It is known that stress can increase suicidality, and that resilience may act as a protective factor against stress, but the specific relationship between stress, resilience, and suicidal ideation in autistic young adults is less understood. Objective: The current study used ecological momentary assessment methods to uncover mental health behaviors in autistic young adults. We hypothesized that increased daily and average perceived stress levels would be associated with increased odds of having a suicidal thought, while increased trait resilience levels would be associated with decreased odds. Methods: Twenty-nine suicidal autistic young adults completed daily surveys related to their experience of stress by asking participants to rate their perceived level of stress that day on a 0-100 scale. Trait measures of resilience were ascertained using the Brief Resilience Scale. Suicidal thoughts served as our binary outcome variable asking participants to report whether they had a suicidal thought that day or not. A multilevel logistic regression model examined within-person associations between stress and suicidal thoughts as well as associations between trait resilience and suicidal thoughts. Our model controlled for time, sex, and age. Results: A 1-unit increase in a participant’s daily perceived stress relative to their own average was associated with a 67% average increase in the odds of having a suicidal thought (OR = 1.67, p < .05). A 1-unit increase in a participant’s average stress compared to the average stress of other participants was associated with 195% average increase in the odds of having a suicidal thought (OR = 2.95, p < .05). The association between trait resilience and suicidal thoughts was not significant. Discussion: Monitoring both daily and average deviations in perceived stress is important for supporting suicidal autistic young adults, as daily stress reflects life events and average stress may stem from genetic and mental health factors. Although resilience did not statistically reduce the odds of having a suicidal thought, it may help to prevent acting on these thoughts. However, this warrants further study.