Autism: The NICE Guideline on Recognition, Referral, Diagnosis and Management of Adults on the Autism Spectrum
National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH)
Autism is a lifelong condition with
particular issues for adults, which are addressed by this NICE
guideline. While some people are diagnosed in childhood, a large
proportion of adults with autism find obtaining a diagnosis in
adulthood difficult or impossible. Under-recognition of autism in
adults can lead to inadequate care, masking of coexisting mental
and physical health problems, and to social and economic exclusion.
This guideline aims to address these widespread problems and
increase the uptake of interventions by adults with autism to
enable them to live more independent lives.
This guideline reviews the evidence for care of adults with autism
across the care pathway, from identification, assessment and
diagnosis, to organisation, delivery and settings for care, through
to psychosocial interventions and biomedical interventions for
autism, challenging behaviour and coexisting mental health
problems. The guideline also contains a chapter on the experience
of care for adults with autism, and their families and carers,
which provides a context for the evidence reviews that follow.
- Now the only place to obtain this NICE guidance in
print.
Readership: All healthcare
professionals working in general and specialist mental health
services and learning disability services.
List of
the other NICE mental health guidelines
NICE Mental Health Guidelines
These guidelines from NICE set out clear
recommendations, based on the best available evidence, for health
care professionals on how to work with and implement physical,
psychological and service-level interventions for people with
various mental health conditions.
The book contains the full guidelines
that cannot be obtained in print anywhere else. It brings together
all of the evidence that led to the recommendations made, detailed
explanations of the methodology behind their preparation, plus an
overview of the condition covering detection, diagnosis and
assessment, and the full range of treatment and care
approaches.
The accompanying free CD-ROM contains all the
data used as evidence, including:
- Included and excluded studies.
- Profile tables that summarise both the quality of the evidence
and the results of the evidence synthesis.
- All meta-analytical data, presented as forest plots.
- Detailed information about how to use and interpret forest
plots.
Contents
- Preface
- Introduction to autism in adults
- Methods used to develop this guideline
- Experience of care
- Case identification, assessment and
diagnosis
- Principles and practice for the effective
organisation and delivery of care
- Psychosocial interventions
- Biomedical interventions
- Summary of recommendations
- Appendices
- References
- Abbreviations