Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes Autism Replication Evaluation (ECHO Autism)

Clinical Practice/Behavior for ASD screening will be assessed at four time points by review of a subset of charts from each Primary Care Provider's practice. Four subsets of charts will be reviewed for appropriate ASD screening occurring during well-child visits. Data will be summarized into the percent of children appropriately screened for ASD by each PCP.

Clinical Practice/Behavior for treating co-occurring medical conditions will be assessed at four time points by review of a subset of charts from each Primary Care Provider's practice. All visits with an ASD will be reviewed. Data will be summarized into the percent of co-occurring medical conditions appropriately treated by each PCP.

ASD knowledge will be assessed at four time points using a 33-item unpublished test developed specifically for the current study. The test assesses knowledge in the areas of ASD screening/identification, psychiatric co-morbidities, medical co-morbidities, and management of additional ASD-specific needs. This test scores are based on the total number of correct answers, among all 33 questions. Any missing answers are counted as incorrect responses. Scores range from 0-100 with higher scores showing more knowledge of ASD.

Self-Efficacy will be assessed at four time points using a 57-item unpublished questionnaire developed for a previous ECHO Autism pilot study. The questionnaire is comprised of five domains: ASD screening and identification, ASD referral and resources, assessment and treatment of medical comorbidities, assessment and treatment of psychiatric comorbidities, and other items. Primary Care Providers report the degree to which they are confident in their ability to provide effective care in each domain. Items are rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale, where 1 = "no confidence" and 6 = "highly confident/expert". Items are summed for a total score and five sub-scale scores. A subscale is marked as missing if more than 20% of responses are missing and the total score is marked as missing if any subscale is marked as missing or if 6 or more of the 57 questions have missing responses. These scores are then normalized to a percentage. Higher scores indicate greater perceived self-efficacy.

Perceived barriers to caring for children with autism in primary care will be assessed by participant response to an unpublished 9-item checklist and an open response "other" category for a total of 10 possible barriers. A maximum of 10 barriers can be reported and a minimum of 0. More reported barriers indicate more barriers to care.

Participant satisfaction will be assessed using an unpublished 12-item survey developed for a previous ECHO Autism pilot study. The survey includes 10 questions assessing overall satisfaction with participation in the ECHO Autism clinic (rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale), and two questions asking for overall comments and suggestions. Participant satisfaction is defined as the percentage of participants who answer 2 = "agree" or 1 = "strongly agree" to question 1 ("Participation in ECHO Autism improved my ability to care for children with autism in my practice").

Percentage of the average number of sessions (out of 12) that the participant attended, of those who have completed the program.

The summary measure is defined as the mean number of co-morbidities reported among the four co-morbidities of interest for a child with ASD. Participants can be included in this outcome measure only if they have children with ASD seen in the 60 days prior to the chart review with an identified medical co-morbidity.