The Mental Health and Wellbeing of Autistic Young People (M-WAY)

  In our last blog post , we shared how the bridging phase of the M-WAY study helped us move from our qualitative research into the next, quantitative stage. But what exactly did we do during the qualitative phase? This part of the project focused on better understanding the lived experience of anxiety and depression among autistic young people. While many quantitative studies have shown that autistic young people are more likely to experience these difficulties, fewer studies have taken a qualitative approach. Talking directly to young people and parents gave us the chance to explore not just the presence of anxiety or depression, but also the context around them – including what might make things better or worse, and how mental health challenges develop over time. Our qualitative study was led by Dr. Sarah Hampton, a member of the M-WAY team and an expert in qualitative methods. Over the course of the study, Sarah interviewed 50 people: 20 autistic young people (aged 10–18) ...