Search results

The funding breakdown of autism research diverges with the research priorities of the autism community and stakeholders (Putnam et al., 2023), prompting concern about the disconnect between researchers and the autism community (Keating, 2021). This study aims to address this gap in the literature through an exploration of autistic adults’ opinions of the current research landscape and what autism research should address through a survey disseminated to the autistic community.

In total, 89 autistic adults completed the survey. Participants rated their agreement to statements with a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” Participants were asked “What should autism research be focused on?” and answered via long answer text.

A numerical difference was found in participants’ ratings of autism research as more harmful than helpful. Participants who identified as nonbinary felt the research community was significantly less helpful and more harmful to the autistic community than those who identified as male (p < 0.01). Nonbinary participants expressed that community involvement in autism research is lower than those who identified as males or females (p < 0.01). Six main themes were identified: “Representation of Diversity in Gender and Ethnicity,” “Improving Quality of Life,” “A Strength-Based Approach,” “Autistic Subjective Experiences,” “Comorbid Mental and Physical Health Disorders” and “Autistic People Involved in Research.”

This research identified intersectional relationships between identity and feelings about autism research and explored recommendations from the autistic community on autism research that serves the best interests and desires of the community.

Bibliometric analyses of psychological research on refugees, asylum-seekers and displaced people is scarce. This study aims to evaluate the productivity and impact of publications related to the psychology of refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people.

Using the Scopus database, the authors searched for psychology-related publications under the subject area “Psychology” and included keywords for refugees, asylum-seeker and displaced people. Retrieved publications were analyzed and visualized using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. Productivity and impact of related research publications were presented.

A total of 2,317 publications were identified, with an h-index of 86. An increase post-2014 was noted. The USA was the most productive country and the University of New South Wales leading institutional contributions. “Review of Child and Adolescent Refugee Mental Health” was top cited. Some keywords, like posttraumatic stress disorder, were frequently used. Research on migration and Syrians from refugee backgrounds is notably advancing.

This study analyzed many publications related to psychology concerning refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people over the past 23 years. Advanced analysis was facilitated using software tools, including Microsoft Excel and Biblioshiny for the Bibliometrix R package and VOSviewer software. These advanced bibliometric and scientometric tools enable us to depict in depth the evolving trends and international collaborations between authors and countries, and analysis tending topic. This study has some limitations. First, the authors restricted our analysis to the Scopus database; thus, some publications available in other databases like Web of Science or Google Scholar may have been overlooked. Second, the keywords used in this study were “refugee,” “asylum-seeker” and “displaced people”. As a result, some relevant publications might have been missed, and future research could use a more comprehensive set of keywords related to refugees, asylum and displacement. For future research, keywords such as humanitarian immigrants, queue jumpers, boaties and stateless, among other terms, should be considered across the field to label people from displaced backgrounds. Our study focused on titles to directly capture the most explicitly relevant articles. In future studies, it is important to include the abstracts and keywords to identify additional pertinent studies. In our study, the authors did not use the asterisk. Thus, the asterisk may allow for the inclusion of all possible endings of a root word.

The study indicates a significant increase in research publications over time. The findings are significant for establishing a research agenda and network in this area, assisting international health agencies and governments in understanding the psychological challenges among this vulnerable group.