Recent evidence suggests that autistic people die earlier than non-autistic people across all death 'categories'. The engagement of autistic patients with primary care is clearly important given that primary care is the first point of contact in the UK healthcare system and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has made autism a clinical priority.

In this presentation Sara discusses the secondary analysis of 37 in-depth interviews conducted with autistic adults. We found that rather than using a ‘common sense’ and taken for granted help seeking rationality, autistic people draw on ‘uncommon sense’ to negotiate the social world. This is intertwined with a tendency to have a deep seated focus on particular topics which enables people to ignore problems or issues they may be facing.

We argue that a focus on biomedically informed, deficit based understandings may not help autistic people seek and engage with healthcare more effectively. The current guidance for primary care patients misses the point around help seeking behavior and that the ways in which healthcare is organised and popularly conceptualised may work either to exclude, or generate further anxiety for autistic people. We offer recommendations for improving the healthcare offered to autistic patients.

Sara Ryan has a background in sociology and anthropology, a PhD in health and social care from the University of Warwick, and her research focuses on disability, autism, and, more broadly, health experiences. Her particular interests lie in understanding and engaging with the health (and life) experiences of people labelled as learning disabled or autistic, and to contribute to the participation of, and engagement with, people who are typically excluded from research practices.

Sara has considerable experience in qualitative research methods, particularly in-depth interviewing, analysis and re-analysis of existing data and has published widely in social science and clinical journals.

This talk is being held as part of the Qualitative Research Methods module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-based Health Care. Members of the public are welcome to attend.