Sleepless Night: Examining the Role of Sleep in Suicidal Ideation among Diverse Populations
1 - (Sym 33) Sleep and Emotion Dysregulation Prospectively Predict Suicide Ideation in Adolescents
Friday, November 18, 2022
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EST
Location: Shubert/Uris, 6th Floor
Keywords: Suicide, Sleep, Transdiagnostic Recommended Readings: Bernert, R. A., & Joiner, T. E. (2007). Sleep disturbances and suicide risk: a review of the literature. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(6), 735-743. Kearns, J. C., Coppersmith, D. D., Santee, A. C., Insel, C., Pigeon, W. R., & Glenn, C. R. (2020). Sleep problems and suicide risk in youth: A systematic review, developmental framework, and implications for hospital treatment. General Hospital Psychiatry, 63, 141-151.
Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky
Objective/
Background: Poor sleep has been shown to have multiple negative outcomes during adolescence, in both academic and mental health domains. Several studies have identified the association between poor sleep and suicide risk in adolescents. Emotion regulation difficulties are also known to associate with suicide risk, as well as sleep disruption. Longitudinal studies that examine how emotion regulation and sleep difficulties associate with suicide ideation in community samples of adolescents are lacking. In the current study, it was expected that emotion regulation difficulties at baseline would mediate the relationship between baseline insomnia symptoms and suicide ideation severity at 6-month follow-up.
Participants: Data were collected from 301 7th and 9th grade students (mean age = 13.19, SD =1.09; 53% female; 85.4% white).
Methods: Adolescent participants were recruited from middle and high schools for a study on mental health and risk behaviors. Researchers visited schools and administered self-report questionnaires to students at baseline and 6-month follow-up. Measures assessed emotion regulation difficulties (emotion dysregulation and interoceptive deficits), insomnia symptoms (Sleep Condition Indicator), and suicide ideation severity (Suicide Ideation Questionnaire-JR).
Results: Mediation models were tested using PROCESS with suicide ideation at baseline as a covariate, insomnia symptoms at baseline as the predictor, interoceptive deficits or emotion dysregulation at baseline as the mediator, and suicide ideation severity at 6-month-follow-up as the outcome variable. Both mediation models were significant, and showed that insomnia symptoms were indirectly related to future suicide ideation severity through emotion regulation difficulties.
Conclusions: These results provide additional evidence that poor sleep is associated with future suicide ideation, and helps explain this relationship by identifying the potential pathway of poor sleep associating with emotion dysregulation, which then associates with suicide ideation. Poor sleep in adolescence is a common precipitant for a number of health and risk behaviors, and should be prioritized in prevention and early intervention programs.