When Night Falls Fast Sleep and Suicidal Behavior Among Adolescents and Young Adults

Sleep problems, especially insomnia, short sleep duration, and chronic nightmares, are potential risk factors for suicidal ideation and behaviors in adolescents and young adults, and they often precede the onset of suicidal ideation or behaviors. Disturbed sleep is present across diagnoses and is modifiable.4 As such, it represents a promising area in suicide prevention. Appropriate screening for sleep problems should be done systematically for all youth endorsing suicidal ideation or behaviors or with risk factors such as mood or trauma -related symptoms.4 More work is needed to clarify the role of extended sleep periods, excessive daytime sleepiness, and the possible contribution of other sleep disorders to suicide risk. Nightmares are rarely explored or addressed beyond PTSD, but they seem to be an independent risk factor for suicide. Importantly, the association between sleep symptoms and suicidal ideation and behavior endures in most studies, even when demographic factors or mood symptoms are taken into account. Of note, the links between sleep disturbances and suicidal ideation and behaviors in younger children and preadolescents are rarely studied, and more research is needed in this area. Previous work suggests that sleep problems precede depression in children, and it is possible that disturbed sleep precedes suicidal ideation in younger children as well.79 Further research is needed to understand the relationship between sleep disturbances and suicidal ideation and behaviors in children and adolescents, because improving sleep may represent one of the most tractable opportunities to address the problem of adolescent suicide.