walleffect

[walleffect]

Debunking Bad Statistics

8% of autistic AFABs are cishet? Autistics are 58% of the psych ward population? Self diagnosis is 80% accurate?

If you're like me, you are probably wondering where these statistics are coming from. So, I have tried to find the validity behind these claims.

Are only 8% of autistic AFABs cishet?

No, this is a false statistic. For one, there is no specific percentage for how many autistic people are trans or cis, much less specifically autistic AFABs. Therefore, it is impossible to make any statement about how much of the autistic community is any specific LGBT identity, and the LGBT label they identify with may change significantly over time.

A study conducted by Simon Baron Cohen examined 641,860 people to determine the relationship between autism and being gender diverse. 30,492 had autism, and 3,777 identified as gender diverse.

About 30,000, or 5%, of cisgender people in the study had autism, whereas 895, or 24%, of gender diverse individuals did. The reason why more gender diverse individuals had autism in this study than cisgender individuals is probably because there is a smaller sample size of gender diverse individuals than cisgender individuals. 30,000 autistic cisgender individuals only made up about 5% of all cisgender individuals, meanwhile 895 autistic gender diverse individuals of 3,777 in total equates to 24%.

In this study, the background explains that meta analyses suggest that 11% of trans individuals are autistic. Other reports suggest that trans and nonbinary individuals are 6x more likely than their cisgender peers to have autism.

Despite the statistical overrepresentation of trans individuals in the autism population, this still does not make trans individuals the majority of the population, as this 8% "statistic" suggests.

One analysis suggested that 15% to 35% of autistic people who do not have intellectual disability identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. LGB identities may be 2-3x higher in autistic individuals. In a Dutch study, 57% of autistic women reported being straight.

As to where this 8% figure is coming from, I honestly have no clue. It doesn't seem to be a simple misinterpretation of current data, but instead seems to be a completely made up percentage.

Are 58% of psych ward patients autistic?

This is a statistic that has some basis in reality, but is written in a way that is easily misconstrued by the reader. This statistic seems to come from the National Autistic Society (which is based in the UK) from their data from May 2024. In total, 2,025 autistic people and people with intellectual disabilities are in inpatient hospitals in England. 1,380 (68%) of these individuals are autistic.

So you have subset of a subset, essentially. If we were speaking only about autistic people, from England, who were in inpatient hospitals around May of last year, then yes, this statistic would be somewhat true (it's still about 10% off). This comment was not under any mention of psychiatric wards or anything remotely having to do with England. Therefore, the statistic is misleading in this context.

32% of autistic women under the age of 25 have been hospitalized for a comorbid psychiatric condition, based off of Swedish national registry data. This may be a more accurate statistic as statistics of autistic people in inpatient hospitals focus on those with higher support needs in England, while this statistic may better represent marginalized autistic people with lower support needs.

Is self diagnosis 80% accurate?

This is a huge one, I see people stating this statistic all the time. This is not a true statistic, however, I believe it has been incredibly misconstrued, not just made up.

Self diagnosis tests for autism have been said to have a 75-80% accuracy rate - not self diagnosis itself. The tests also were not reliable in detecting non-autistic individuals (indicated ASD in individuals without ASD). "The positive predictive values indicate that these tests correctly identified autism spectrum disorder patients in almost 80% of the referred cases. However, the negative predictive values suggest that only half of the referred patients without autism spectrum disorder were correctly identified."

Furthermore, the study itself says that none of these tests have sufficient validity for self diagnosis. Quote, "none of these instruments have sufficient validity to reliably predict a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in outpatient settings."

This study does not say that 80% of self diagnosis is correct, nor is it even pro self diagnosis at all.

One study from 2018 ("Accuracy of Reported Community Diagnosis of ASD") found 23% of the individuals in their study did not have autism. However, this study only had a sample size of 87 individuals, and these individuals were notably not self diagnosed, but diagnosed by their parents (that's the community diagnosis).

This study assessing screening questionnaires gave a figure of 63%. However, these people that participated in the screening questionnaire were professionally referred and had already been suspected by medical professionals as having ASD.

A Harvard study looked at 23 websites with symptom checkers and found that these websites were accurate only about half of the time. Comparatively, diagnostic accuracy by doctors is close to 90%.

An older Pew Research study found that 18% of self diagnosers consulted a medical professional, and the clinician did not agree with the self diagnosis. A further 1% said that their conversation with their clinician was inconclusive, and 2% said a medical professional "partially confirmed" it. 41% said that a medical professional had confirmed their self diagnosis. This would mean, using this study, that the accuracy rate of self diagnosis would be closer to 41%, not 80%.

In another study, for self reported mania, somatic symptom disorder, and alcohol use disorder, the pattern of mean differences did not suggest that the individuals were accurate in their self diagnoses. This finding was also replicated in bipolar disorder, however, self diagnosis in disorders like depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and insomnia were perceived to be accurate. "Our findings also reveal that self-reported diagnoses are more accurate for more commonly occurring conditions; for example, depression and GAD showed high accuracy in self-diagnosis, but they are also among the most common mental disorders, unlike other anxiety disorders like panic that occur at lower frequencies...It is possible that the accuracy of self-diagnosis corresponds best to disorders that occur at high base rates, which could partially explain our poor self-diagnosis accuracy for mania, panic, and somatic symptom disorders."

Furthermore, in a study examining self diagnosis of vaginal disorders, skin disorders, and HIV, the authors had concluded that "the current limited evidence does not support routine self-diagnosis for vaginal infections, common skin conditions and HIV in primary care."

A study examining 48 different symptom checkers found that diagnostic accuracy was low (19% to 38%).

In essence, this is a statistic that has been wildly taken out of context to fit an agenda. There are many argument for self diagnosis, but this is not one of them. The tests are 80% accurate, not the self diagnosis.

[walleffect]

i would honestly rather be called a slur than "neurospicy"

[walleffect]

depression is a serious medical condition actually

day 7876 of being annoyed that "mental health advocates" made depression and anxiety the "normal" mental illnesses- probably because it's easy to simplify them down to feeling "sad" or "scared".

A lot of the time, mental health advocacy takes the form of teenagers on the internet joking about their experiences or well-meaning people trying to explain conditions they don't have, but I'd honestly rather they didn't at this point.

It took me nearly dying from an overdose to realize that this condition that I'd been diagnosed with isn't a joke.

I have this memory of the night I got discharged from the hospital, staring at my last blood tests results, trying to listen to the ER doctor as he told me that he wanted me to come back here before I try to hurt myself again. I remember telling him that I felt like this whole thing was just me making a big deal out of nothing because I genuinely believed, at the time, that depression wasn't a big deal, that I needed a more debilitating set of symptoms to actually call myself ill.

He told me that he didn't care if it wasn't a big deal to me, but it was his job to make sure that I didn't die. It took a couple of days, but it sunk in.

The problem with most mental health advocacy these days is that it quite frankly trivializes depression. That word has a specific medical meaning, it's not something that should be taken lightly, and I hate that it's suddenly become normal for people to just take these medical words and use them with no regard for the weight they hold.

There's a broader point here about people bringing therapy speak into everyday language and how it erodes and invalidates the seriousness of what said words imply, but I'll let someone else make it.

[walleffect]

about me:

You may call me Abby!

I'm 21 years old.

I use she/her pronouns.

I'm bi and (probably) ace, but I don't care much for labels online.

When I'm not online, my interests include reading, baking, painting & sketching, writing, and going on walks.

I'm a huge coffee nerd, and my favourite tea is either a good masala chai or earl grey.

This is just a fun fact: my username is a reference to research I've done in neutron physics! Please feel free to ask me more if you're curious, although this isn't going to be a physics blog.

topics on this blog:

Chronic pain and all of the medical and non-medical things that make it annoying to deal with.

How mental illness affects my life, specifically dealing with my history of severe depressive episodes.

A documentation of what my journey to accepting and treating my health issues has looked like.

The occasional opinion post about the changes I would like to see in healthcare, society's views on chronic illness, and how online communities sometimes get too carried away.

disclaimers and additional info!

I'm not a medical professional! While I enjoy learning about medicine, I do so very much as a hobby and usually focus on my specific issues: please don't put too much weight in my words.

I am not planning on being a discourse blog, however: I have some pretty strong opinions on how some communities have a tendency to misunderstand the purpose of a medical diagnosis and perpetuate misinformation under the label of being pro-self dx- while I wouldn't consider myself anti-self dx, I think it's safe to say that some people have gotten a little carried away.

Following from my last point, I strongly believe that there are very, very few- if any- situations that are black-and-white. I try not to label my stances as anti-xyz or pro-xyz, but I will often use those tags.

I will be using the block button liberally, don't be rude, and follow along if you'd like :)