Abstract / Summary
AbstractBackground: Autistic adults experience higher rates of mental health concerns and additional barriers to accessing mental health care than adults without autism. Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are easily codesigned and contextualized to various groups, and provide a scalable option for improving mental health care access for autistic adults. While previous research has found DMHIs to be acceptable and effective among autistic adults, low adherence and engagement rates present a consistent barrier to the successful implementation.
Methods: Our team codesigned a single session DMHI based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for autistic adults. We tested the program in an open trial of N = 79 autistic adults that assessed outcomes at baseline, 2-week, and 6-week follow-up.
Results: We found that the single session DMHI was feasible to deliver and acceptable among autistic adults. Improvements in subjective well-being, quality of life, psychological distress, and psychological flexibility were observed from baseline to the 2-week follow-up and were maintained at 6-week follow-up.
Conclusions: Results provide support that single-session DMHIs may be a useful mechanism for disseminating evidence-based mental health supports to autistic adults. Results lay the foundation for more robust research on the efficacy of this ACT-based single session DMHI using randomized controlled trials.