Principal Investigator(s):
Bridgett Kiernan
Grant Type:
Graduate Research
Funding:
2,000
Organization:
University of Virginia
Year Awarded:
2025
Status:
In Progress
Location:
Charlottesville, VA
Topics:
Employment, Transition, and Adults; Health and Sensory Issues
Abstract
Suicidality is presently a global health concern, with rates of suicide deaths increasing 30% in the last 25 years. Suicidality is an even greater concern in the autism community, where suicide is among the most commonly reported causes of death for autistic people. Autistic adults are 9 times more likely to experience suicidal ideation than non-autistic people. However, mental health care is often difficult for autistic people to access due to client-, provider-, and system-level barriers, such as the lack of provider confidence supporting autistic people and a disconnected services system. Even when autistic people are able to access mental health (MH) services, many treatments do not take into account the unique needs of autistic people. This has created an urgent need to improve the access to and quality of MH services for autistic adults experiencing suicidality. Prior research has demonstrated the effectiveness of crisis call and chatlines (e.g., 988 Lifeline) on improving short term outcomes for non-autistic people, such as reducing suicide attempts. Though crisis hotlines may be a promising MH safety net for autistic people in crisis, the gap in research on MH crisis resources is even larger for autistic people: there have been no studies to date examining how autistic people are accessing crisis hotlines.
The proposed study seeks to fill this critical gap in knowledge by exploring autistic adults’ and crisis counselors’ experiences and perceptions of receiving and delivering crisis hotline services. Understanding the perceived effectiveness, acceptability, and fit of crisis hotlines from both the autistic and the provider perspective is an important first step to improving access to essential crisis care. The outcomes of this study will provide both a deep understanding of this service’s delivery in real-world contexts but will also develop practical recommendations and tangible next steps to improve crisis.
