Sociodemographic Factors Associated with Autistic Youth's Psychotherapy Service Use

Autistic youth have a high co-occurrence of mental health challenges and a resultant high need for mental health treatment. However, they experience mental health service disparities compared to non-autistic youth. Social determinants of health (SDH) may contribute to mental health service disparities among autistic youth, yet this has not been previously examined. Therefore, the present study utilized a validated composite of children's SDH to examine whether autistic youth with better SDH were more likely to use psychotherapy services compared to those with poor SDH using state-level records of insurance billing claims data (2019 All-Payer Claims Database). 700 autistic youth with a co-occurring mental health condition were included in analyses. One or more claim records for psychotherapy CPT codes were used as indicators of psychotherapy service use. SDH was assessed using the Childhood Opportunity Index, a continuous composite measure of neighborhood SDH. The predictive effect of SDH on psychotherapy use were examined, while examining covariates of insurance type and age. Approximately 70% of the sample did not use any psychotherapy services. Inconsistent with findings from non-autistic samples, autistic youth's SDH did not predict their likelihood of using psychotherapy services; rather, those with low and high opportunity alike did not access psychotherapy. Age increased the likelihood, and using Medicaid decreased the likelihood of psychotherapy service use. These results may highlight the compounded barriers to psychotherapy that autistic youth may experience, including the paucity of mental health providers who accept Medicaid and accept autistic youth clients.