ArticleJournal of autism and developmental disorders2025
Intolerance of Uncertainty and Anxiety (but not Alexithymia) Mediate the Association Between Autistic Traits and Quality of Life.
Article in Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Anxiety as a Moderator Between Autistic/ADHD Traits and Quality of Life in Autistic Children and Adolescents.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Autism related traits and anxiety in the general population are linked through intolerance of uncertainty and affect labeling.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Discrepancies between feeling and expressing: Perceptions of autistic and non-autistic emotional expressions by non-autistic observers.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous research has indicated that autistic individuals report lower quality of life (QoL) than non-autistic people. It is unclear whether it is the autism traits themselves or co-occurring thinking styles or mental health difficulties that most impair QoL. This study tested a hypothesised model to explore how 'intolerance of uncertainty' (IU), alexithymia (difficulty in identifying and describing own emotions), and anxiety play into the association between autistic traits and QoL. Online survey data were analysed from 116 autistic and 51 non-autistic adults who completed six standardised questionnaires measuring autistic traits, alexithymia, IU, anxiety and QoL (physical health, psychological health, social relations, and environment domains). The autistic group reported higher scores for alexithymia, IU and anxiety, and lower scores for QoL across domains, compared to the non-autistic group. Across the entire sample, autistic traits, alexithymia, IU and anxiety were positively correlated with one another, and negatively related to the four domains of QoL. Finally, IU and anxiety partially serially mediated the pathways from autistic traits to physical health and environment domains of QoL, and fully mediated the pathways from autistic traits to psychological health and social relations domains of QoL, across the full sample. The lower QoL experienced by autistic people may be explained in part by the mediating effect of both IU and anxiety (but not alexithymia). This study highlights the need for evidence-based interventions to address both IU and anxiety to improve QoL for autistic people/those with high levels of autistic traits.
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Registered trials
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