Adults with autism who live in community settings are more likely to receive drug therapy than other adults in community settings.

This study looked at adults with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) who lived in community setting to see which behaviors predicted that they would receive drug therapy. People with PDD were more likely than controls to have problem behaviors and to receive drug therapy. Drug therapy was even more common in the autistic group. Doctors tended to prescribe drugs because they were concerned about the safety of service users and service providers. That said, having challenging behavior alone (in the absence of PDD) did not predict the use of drug therapy in community settings.