Examination of emotional distress, depression, and anxiety in neurodiverse students: A cross-sectional study

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the participants’ characteristics

Variable	Level	Counts	Total	Proportion	P value	95%CI for proportion
						Lower	Upper
Gender	Male	95	200	0.475	0.525	0.404	0.547
	Female	105	200	0.525	0.525	0.453	0.596
Educational setting	Mainstream schools	86	200	0.43	0.056	0.36	0.502
	Special education schools	78	200	0.39	0.002	0.322	0.461
	Alternative learning environments	36	200	0.18	< 0.001	0.129	0.24
Diagnosis	ASD	114	200	0.57	0.056	0.498	0.64
	ADHD	78	200	0.39	0.002	0.322	0.461
	SLD	8	200	0.04	< 0.001	0.017	0.077

Proportions tested against value: 0.5. ASD: Autism spectrum disorder; ADHD: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; SLD: Specific learning disabilities.

Table 2 Additional descriptive statistics of the participants’ characteristics

	Shapiro-Wilk	P value of Shapiro-Wilk
Gender	0.636	< 0.001
Educational setting	0.784	< 0.001
Diagnosis	0.697	< 0.001

Table 3 Descriptive Statistics for the prevalence of emotional distress, depression, and anxiety

	Emotional distress	Depression	Anxiety
Valid	200	200	200
Mean	26.27	34.25	68.815
SD	4.002	6.32	8.82
Shapiro-Wilk	0.884	0.831	0.742
P value of Shapiro-Wilk	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Minimum	14	18	37
Maximum	32	40	77
25th percentile	23	30	66
50th percentile	26.5	36	73
75th percentile	30	40	75

Table 4 Spearman's correlations for emotional distress, depression and anxiety

		Emotional distress	Depression	Anxiety
Emotional distress	Spearman's rho	-
	P value	-
Depression	Spearman's rho	0.445c	-
	P value	< 0.001	-
Anxiety	Spearman's rho	0.181a	0.492c	-
	P value	0.01	< 0.001	-

^aP < 0.05.

^cP < 0.001.

Table 5 Bayesian Mann-Whitney U test showing the impact of gender on emotional distress, depression and anxiety

	BF10	W	Rhat
Emotional distress	2.448	3971.5	1.002
Depression	0.852	4314	1
Anxiety	0.842	4440.5	1.002

Result based on data augmentation algorithm with 5 chains of 1000 iterations.

Table 6 ANOVA for emotional distress across different educational settings and diagnoses

Cases	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P value
Educational setting	20.279	2	10.14	0.68	0.508
Diagnosis	53.062	2	26.531	1.778	0.172
Educational setting1 diagnosis	185.33	4	46.333	3.106	0.017
Residuals	2849.394	191	14.918

¹Type III sum of squares.

Table 7 Kruskal-Wallis test for emotional distress across different educational settings and diagnoses

Factor	Statistic	df	P value
Educational setting	4.996	2	0.082
Diagnosis	4.188	2	0.123

Tests are conducted separately for each variable, without accounting for multivariate effects.

Table 8 ANOVA for depression across different educational settings and diagnoses

Cases	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P value
Educational setting	59.334	2	29.667	0.784	0.458
Diagnosis	122.937	2	61.469	1.625	0.2
Educational setting1 diagnosis	174.927	4	43.732	1.156	0.332
Residuals	7225.005	191	37.827

¹Type III sum of squares.

Table 9 Kruskal-Wallis test for depression across different educational settings and diagnoses

Factor	Statistic	df	P value
Educational setting	5.205	2	0.074
Diagnosis	1.379	2	0.502

Tests are conducted separately for each variable, without accounting for multivariate effects.

Table 10 ANOVA for anxiety across different educational settings and diagnoses

Cases	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P value
Educational setting	145.56	2	72.78	1.032	0.358
Diagnosis	84.696	2	42.348	0.601	0.549
Educational setting1 diagnosis	502.701	4	125.675	1.783	0.134
Residuals	13465.03	191	70.498

¹Type III sum of squares.

Table 11 Kruskal-Wallis test for anxiety across different educational settings and diagnoses

Factor	Statistic	df	P value
Educational setting	12.459	2	0.002
Diagnosis	1.495	2	0.474

Tests are conducted separately for each variable, without accounting for multivariate effects.

Table 12 Post hoc comparisons – educational setting

		Mean difference	SE	t	PTukey
Mainstream schools	Special education schools	-3.48	2.728	-1.276	0.411
	Alternative learning environments	-3.598	2.835	-1.269	0.414
Special education schools	Alternative learning environments	-0.118	2.584	-0.046	0.999

P value adjusted for comparing a family of 3. Results are averaged over the levels of diagnosis.