Observational studyWomen's health (London, England)
Understanding the impact of prior depressive and anxiety symptoms and autism diagnosis on menopause symptoms.
Observational study in Women's health (London, England). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Sleep Problems and Mental Health in Middle-Aged and Older Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults.International journal of geriatric psychiatry · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BackgroundThere is growing awareness from qualitative research studies that menopause may be particularly challenging for autistic people. Research in the general population suggests that preexisting conditions may be a risk factor for negative experiences during menopause. However, there are limited studies examining variables associated with experiences of menopause symptoms for autistic people.ObjectivesTo explore whether pre-existing depression and anxiety symptoms impact menopause symptoms for autistic and non-autistic people.DesignThe study design is classified as STROBE.MethodsAutistic (n=52) and non-autistic (n=28) people assigned female at birth participated in the longitudinal AgeWellAutism (AWA) study. They reported self-report depression and anxiety symptoms at baseline and menopause symptoms (Greene Climacteric Scale) at follow-up after 4.5 years. Age, autism diagnosis and autism characteristics of mentalising difficulties, sensory reactivity, and social anxiety (subscales from the self-reported Ritvo Autism and Asperger Diagnostic Scale, RAADS) were recorded.ResultsRegression analyses were conducted with menopause symptoms as the dependent variable and as independent variables: Step 1, age; Step 2, baseline depression and anxiety symptoms, Step 3, autism diagnosis (alternative step 3, RAADS subscales). In the final regression model, younger age, higher baseline depression and autism diagnosis contributed significantly to explaining menopause symptom severity. In the alternative model (including subscales of the RAADS), younger age, higher baseline depression, mentalising difficulties and sensory reactivity contributed significantly to explaining menopause symptom severity.ConclusionsResults align with research from the general population suggesting that a history of depression symptoms increases risk of negative experiences during menopause, furthermore, being autistic confers additional risk. Further studies examining the influence of lifetime experiences on menopause symptoms for neurodivergent people are required to better understand and mitigate risk during this critical time.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.