Sex Differences in the Relationship between PTSD Spectrum Symptoms and Autistic Traits in a Sample of University Students

Abstract

Background:While growing literature is stressing the link between Autistic Traits (AT) and trauma-/stress-related disorders, in both conditions significant differences have been separately reported.Objective:This study aims to evaluate the relationship between AT and trauma-/stress-related symptoms with respect to sex.Methods:178 university students were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5, the Trauma and Loss Spectrum (TALS) and the Adult Autism Subthreshold Spectrum (AdAS). In order to evaluate sex differences in trauma-/stress-related symptoms among subjects with higher or lower AT, the sample was split in two groups with an equal number of subjects on the basis of the median score reported on AdAS Spectrum (“AdAS high scorers” and “AdAS low scorers”).Results:Females reported significantly higher TALS total score, Loss events and Grief reaction domain scores than males in the whole sample, while AdAS high scorers reported significantly higher TALS total and domain scores than AdAS low scorers. A significant interaction between high/low AdAS score and sex emerged for TALS domains, with females scoring significantly higher than males only among AdAS low scorers, specifically on Loss events, Grief reaction, Re-experiencing and Personal characteristics/Risk factors domains. Finally, among AdAS high scorers a significantly higher rate of subjects fulfilled symptomatological criteria for PTSD than among AdAS low scorers, without sex differences.Conclusion:Our results confirm a significant relationship between AT and trauma-/stress-related symptoms, which seems to prevail on sex differences among high-risk subjects.

Risk and Protective Factors for PTSD in Caregivers of Adult Patients with Severe Medical Illnesses: A Systematic Review

“…In line with previous literature across different study populations, female caregivers were found to be more affected by PTSD symptoms [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46] corroborating female gender as a major risk factor [63][64][65][66][67]. Other studies [35,47,48] found that older family caregivers reported fewer PTSD symptoms, suggesting the role of different coping strategies and life experiences with respect to younger ones.…”

Post-Traumatic Stress Reactions in Caregivers of Children and Adolescents/Young Adults with Severe Diseases: A Systematic Review of Risk and Protective Factors

“…In regard to sociodemographic factor, our review found women to be at higher risk of developing PTSD symptoms with respect to men [ 42 , 46 , 50 , 58 , 63 ], with rates up to 13.3% of the mothers reporting full-PTSD and 43.3% partial PTSD [ 58 ]. This heightened risk of PTSD in women was highlighted in many studies [ 75 , 76 , 77 ] and has been related to a greater fear conditioning in women than in men [ 78 ]. On the other hand, the effect of age on the risk of PTSD/PTSS was investigated with a minor extent.…”

Subthreshold Autism Spectrum in a Patient with Anorexia Nervosa and Behçet’s Syndrome

“…First of all, subjects with ASD are known to show significant difficulties in adjusting to life events, eventually showing an increased vulnerability towards the development of suicidal behaviors in the context of an adjustment disorder [29]. Moreover, autistic traits have been reported to increase the likelihood of developing posttraumatic symptoms, leading to hypothesize that some autistic dimensions might raise the risk of a broad range of trauma and stress-related disorders [5,6,30,31].…”

“…Recently, increasing interest has been paid to investigating the presence of subthreshold autistic traits, providing support to the hypothesis that a subthreshold autism spectrum may represent a dimension spanning across several mental disorders [1]. The interest in investigating autistic traits lies in the fact that a growing number of studies are stressing their role as a vulnerability factor towards the development of different kinds of psychiatric disorders, as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Moreover, milder forms of ASD, without intellectual impairment and with less evident social difficulties, may often remain underdiagnosed, coming to clinical attention only during adult life, when patients develop other disorders in comorbidity [1,2].…”