Estimating the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Conditions in Adults - Extending the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey

This report presents a new estimate of the prevalence of autism among adults aged 18 years and over. This was derived using data from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS 2007) in combination with data from a new study of the prevalence of autism among adults with learning disabilities, who are a key group to study because they could not take part in the APMS 2007 and have been found to have an increased risk of autism.

The study was based on adults with learning disabilities living in private households and communal care establishments in Leicestershire, Lambeth and Sheffield. Whilst the study comprised a relatively small sample with limited geographical coverage and did not include the institutional population, it did include two non-mutually exclusive populations (people in communal care establishments and people with learning disabilities) which were not covered by the APMS 2007.

The study demonstrates that autism is common among people with a learning disability and, in taking these into account, at 1.1 per cent nationally is slightly higher than the previous estimate of 1.0 per cent in the APMS 2007. Sensitivity analysis showed that the estimates for national prevalence produced by this study were relatively insensitive to inaccuracies caused by the limitations.

本报告呈现了对18岁及以上成年人自闭症患病率的最新估计。该估计结合了2007年成人精神疾病患病率调查（APMS 2007）的数据以及一项关于学习障碍成年人自闭症患病率的新研究数据。学习障碍成年人是一组关键的研究对象，因为他们无法参与APMS 2007调查，且研究表明他们患有自闭症的风险增加。研究基于居住在莱斯特郡、兰贝斯和谢菲尔德的私人家庭和社区护理机构中的学习障碍成年人。尽管该研究样本相对较小，地理覆盖范围有限，且未包括机构人口，但它确实涵盖了两个非互斥的人群（社区护理机构中的居民和学习障碍人士），这些人群在APMS 2007调查中未得到覆盖。研究结果表明，学习障碍人群中自闭症的患病率较高，在考虑这些因素后，全国患病率估计值为1.1%，略高于APMS 2007中的先前估计值1.0%。敏感性分析显示，本研究所产生的全国患病率估计值对由局限性引起的误差相对不敏感。