ArticleChildren (Basel, Switzerland)2023
Finding the Proportion of Females with Autistic Spectrum Disorder Who Develop Anorexia Nervosa, the True Prevalence of Female ASD and Its Clinical Significance.
Article in Children (Basel, Switzerland), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- A scoping review of the relationship between autistic traits and eating disorders: exploring the secondary impact of eating disorders and co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Taking Off the Mask: Investigating Autism Diagnosis and Camouflaging in Adult Women.Autism in adulthood · 2026Article
- Bridging autism and eating disorders: a scoping review on repetitive and restrictive behavioral patterns.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Review
- Finding the Prevalence of Autism in Female Mental Illness: Improving Child Development for an Underdiagnosed and Undertreated Population.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Is Interoception Deficit Linking Alexithymia and Eating Spectrum Symptoms? Study on a Non-Clinical Sample of Young Adults.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It appears that up to 80% of females with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) have not been diagnosed by the age of 18. This translates to a prevalence of about 5-6%, and if true, has serious implications for female mental health. One way of finding the true value is to use Bayes' Theorem with a comorbid condition as a more easily recognizable flag. An obvious choice is anorexia nervosa (AN), but it transpires that the proportion of women with ASD who develop AN is unknown. This study uses published data in novel ways to provide two methods of estimating a range for this variable, and gives a median value of 8.3% for AN in ASD and, with four other methods, a median prevalence of 6% for female ASD. The clinical implications of the diagnosis and management of ASD and its comorbidities are discussed and, as an example, a solution is provided for the rate of ASD in symptomatic generalized joint hypermobility. It is probable that one in six women with a mental health condition is autistic.
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Registered trials
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 Socratic graph.