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The increasing population of wheelchair users in the United States highlights the importance of access to reliable and affordable wheelchair maintenance and repair. Having a well-maintained mobility device is essential to living a safe, healthy, and social life as a wheelchair user. Unfortunately, access to these services is limited. This study aims to address this need by developing and evaluating a workshop program designed to teach basic wheelchair maintenance skills to bike shop employees, allied health professionals, and wheelchair users themselves. The workshops covered key wheelchair maintenance tasks. Pre and post workshop surveys assessed participants' confidence in basic maintenance and repair skills and overall satisfaction with the workshop. Workshop participants reported increased confidence in all maintenance skills following the workshops and bike shop employees expressed increased confidence in their ability to work with and provide resources for wheelchair users. This study highlights that community-based workshops may help to enhance confidence in wheelchair maintenance skills, potentially aiding in bridging the gap in affordable and accessible repair services. The Wheeled Repair Alliance has the potential to empower wheelchair users and improve their quality of life. Further research should consider increasing the precision of measurements and assessing long-term outcomes related to wheelchair maintenance and repair.
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LAY ABSTRACT: How satisfied people feel with their social connections and support is related to mental health outcomes for many different types of people. People may feel less socially connected at some times in their life-like when they start college. Feeling disconnected from others could lead to depression or anxiety. The transition to college may be especially difficult for autistic students as they are more likely to have difficulties adjusting socially. In our study, we asked 263 college students to answer questions about their emotions and social satisfaction twice per week during their first semester of college. We found that students who reported being less satisfied with their social connectedness (either at the beginning or throughout the semester) tended to express more symptoms of depression and anxiety. This relationship between social satisfaction and anxiety was even stronger for people who had a strong desire for social interaction (i.e. were more socially motivated). Students with more autistic traits tended to report more mood concerns, and they also reported being less satisfied with friendships at the beginning of the semester. This information may help to support ongoing efforts to better address mental health in autistic college students by encouraging efforts to improve social satisfaction.
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Background: Improving the understanding and treatment of mental health concerns, including depression and anxiety, are significant priorities for autistic adults. While several theories have been proposed to explain the high prevalence of internalizing symptoms in autistic populations, little longitudinal research has been done to investigate potential causal mechanisms. Additional research is needed to explore how proposed contributors to depression from general population research predict and/or moderate the development of internalizing symptoms in autistic individuals. In this study, we investigated the relation of one established risk factor, repetitive negative thinking (RNT), to internalizing symptoms over the course of college students' first semester, additionally examining whether this association is moderated by a measure of autistic traits. Methods: Students were recruited from 4 northeastern U.S. universities: 144 participating students included 97 nonautistic students and 47 participants who either reported a formal autism diagnosis (n = 15) or endorsed a history of self and/or others thinking that they may be autistic (n = 32). Participants completed a baseline survey battery within their first 2 weeks of starting college, a brief biweekly survey throughout their first semester (up to 24 times across 12 weeks), and an endpoint packet. Results: Elevated trait-like RNT at baseline was prospectively associated with biweekly ratings of depression and anxiety symptoms across the semester. In addition, greater RNT was synchronously related to elevated sadness, anhedonia, and anxiety throughout the semester. Contrary to hypotheses, a shorter term predictive relationship between RNT at one timepoint and mood symptoms at the next was largely unsupported. While these patterns were observed across neurotypes, students with higher self-reported autistic traits were more likely to experience RNT, as well as depressive and anxiety symptoms. Conclusions: These preliminary findings highlight RNT as a specific mechanism that may be a useful prevention and/or intervention target toward reducing the elevated depression and anxiety rates in the autistic community.
Why was this study done?: Many autistic people have depression and anxiety. However, we know very little about why autistic people are more likely to have these mental health concerns than people who are not autistic. We also do not know what leads to these symptoms over time. One theory is that repetitive negative thinking (RNT; or thinking repeatedly about problems and worries) might cause depression and anxiety. Autistic people might do more RNT than nonautistic people. What was the purpose of this study?: In this study, we wanted to see how RNT might relate to depression and anxiety over the first semester of college. We looked at how this might be related to autistic traits. What did the researchers do?: The researchers gave surveys to 144 students about their experiences with depression, anxiety, and RNT. The participants answered these surveys at the beginning and end of their first semester at their university. They also completed a brief survey 24 times (twice per week for 12 weeks) during the semester. What were the results of the study?: We found that overall RNT levels at the beginning of the semester were related to sadness, anhedonia (lack of pleasure), and anxiety later. In-the-moment RNT reported on the twice-weekly survey was also related to sadness, anhedonia, and anxiety. However, RNT on biweekly surveys did not seem to predict mood symptoms a few days later. Students with higher levels of autistic traits tended to report more depression and anxiety, as well as more RNT. What do these findings add to what was already known?: This study helps us to understand that RNT might be related to depression and anxiety, regardless of whether or not someone is autistic. This might mean that reducing RNT could help prevent or treat depression and anxiety, especially in autistic adults. What are potential weaknesses in the study?: Our study had a low number of participants with formal autism diagnoses (15 people), so it might not represent the broader population of autistic adults with formal diagnoses as well as we would like. Nevertheless, we had a larger group with self-reported or suspected autism (32 people). How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: These findings help us to better understand risk factors for depression and anxiety in autistic adults. Since RNT was related to depression and anxiety in the same way regardless of levels of autistic traits in our study, we hope that clinicians will feel more comfortable providing therapy to people with mood disorders, regardless of whether they are autistic and/or have high autistic traits. This could be a small step toward increasing equity and accessibility of mental health services for autistic adults.
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Objective: Depression and anxiety have been identified as growing concerns for many populations in the United States, including young adults. We investigated how internalizing symptoms may have changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic among students transitioning to college.Participants: Participants were incoming undergraduates in Fall 2020, 2021, and 2022 at Northeastern Universities (N = 263).Methods: Participants completed self-reports of mood, repetitive thinking, and social satisfaction within two weeks of beginning their first college semester.Results: Depression and anxiety symptoms appear to differ by year, such that both have increased over time. These results seem to be co-occurring with an increase in repetitive negative thinking - a known predictor of depression and anxiety.Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that mental health concerns in young adults may be worsening despite the resumption of in-person activities post-initial pandemic onset. This highlights the need to monitor and intervene on mental health in students transitioning to college.
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LAY ABSTRACT: Autistic adults are substantially more likely to develop depression than individuals in the general population, and recent research has indicated that certain differences in thinking styles associated with autism may play a role in this association. Rumination, the act of thinking about the same thing over and over without a functional outcome, is a significant risk factor for depression in both autistic and non-autistic adults. However, little is known about how different kinds of rumination relate to each other and to depressive symptoms in the autistic population specifically. To fill this gap in knowledge, we recruited a large online sample of autistic adults, who completed questionnaire measures of both the tendency to ruminate and symptoms of depression. By examining the interacting network of rumination and depression symptoms, this study was able to identify particular aspects of rumination-such as thinking repetitively about one's guilty feelings or criticizing oneself-that may be particularly important in maintaining these harmful thought patterns in autistic adults. Although further study is needed, it is possible that the symptoms identified as most "influential" in the network may be particularly good targets for future interventions for mood and anxiety disorders in the autistic population.
