Charlotte Featherstone, Richard Sharpe, Nick Axford, Sheena Asthana, Kerryn Husk
{"title":"Autistic adults’ experiences of managing wellbeing and implications for social prescribing","authors":"Charlotte Featherstone, Richard Sharpe, Nick Axford, Sheena Asthana, Kerryn Husk","doi":"10.1080/09687599.2023.2263628","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Autistic people demonstrate poor outcomes on objective measures of wellbeing, yet research centring lived experience provides a more nuanced picture. There is growing support for person-centred, holistic and community approaches to enhancing wellbeing for autistic people. Social prescribing may be one such approach. This qualitative study explored the concept of wellbeing for autistic adults – including barriers and self-management – and the implications of this for modifying social prescribing. It involved semi-structured interviews with 21 autistic adults in the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis of the data supports research suggesting that self-determination may underlie many aspects of wellbeing for autistic people. The COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities to develop wellbeing strategies but also had negative impacts. Social prescribing could promote self-determination by signposting autistic people to peer support opportunities building on intrinsic interests.","PeriodicalId":48208,"journal":{"name":"Disability & Society","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Disability & Society","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2023.2263628","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"REHABILITATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Autistic people demonstrate poor outcomes on objective measures of wellbeing, yet research centring lived experience provides a more nuanced picture. There is growing support for person-centred, holistic and community approaches to enhancing wellbeing for autistic people. Social prescribing may be one such approach. This qualitative study explored the concept of wellbeing for autistic adults – including barriers and self-management – and the implications of this for modifying social prescribing. It involved semi-structured interviews with 21 autistic adults in the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis of the data supports research suggesting that self-determination may underlie many aspects of wellbeing for autistic people. The COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities to develop wellbeing strategies but also had negative impacts. Social prescribing could promote self-determination by signposting autistic people to peer support opportunities building on intrinsic interests.