Table 6.

Joint display table showing integration of quantitative and qualitative findings with meta-inferences and interpretation

Overarching theme	Quantitative finding	Qualitative finding	Meta-inferences and interpretation
Levels of worry	Autistic adults demonstrated significantly greater worry than non-autistic adults on the PSWQ, WDQ and DWQ	Autistic adults described worry as constant and difficult to escape from	Complementary: Autistic adults experience worry that is troubling to them and difficult to control Expansion: Qualitative findings add insight into the feelings associated with high levels of worry
Impact of worry	Autistic adults demonstrate significantly greater worry on the DWQ compared to non-autistic adults	Autistic adults described that worry impacted across all domains of life and reduced participation	Expansion: The DWQ demonstrates the emotional impact of worry, while qualitative data describes the impact of worry on daily functioning and participation
Focus of Worry	Autistic adults demonstrated significantly greater worry on all domains of the WDQ	Autistic adults described a broad range of areas of worry (Table 5)	Convergence: Similar areas of worry identified across qualitative and quantitative data Divergence The qualitative study identified worries not captured in the quantitative data, specifically about social missteps and uncertainty