Symposia
Suicide and Self-Injury
Jaclyn C. Kearns, M.A.
University of Rochester
Rochester, New York
Catherine Glenn, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA
Evan M. Kleiman, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rutgers, The State university of new jersey
Piscataway, New Jersey
Kinjal Patel, BA
Graduate Student
Old Dominion University
norfolk, Virginia
Yeates Conwell, MD
Professor
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, New York
Linda Alpert-Gillis, PhD
Professor
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, New York
Wilfred Pigeon, PhD
Professor
University of Rochester Medical Center
rochester, New York
Sleep problems (term used here to refer to a range of sleep difficulties, including insomnia symptoms, nightmares, and poor sleep quality) are a documented risk factor for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs)among youth over both long (e.g., years) and short (i.e., hours and days) periods of time. However, less is known about how sleep problems confer risk for youth STBs. Anhedonia (i.e., broadly defined as the absence of pleasure, includes both anticipatory and consummatory components) and cognitive inflexibility (i.e., an inability to think and shift in a fluid or flexible manner) are two promising mechanisms in this sleep-STB association – both have been found to increase following sleep problems and have been linked to greater STBs. However, they have not been examined directly as mechanisms linking sleep problems to STBs. We will use a multimodal real-time monitoring approach to examine how sleep problems (assessed via smartphone-based sleep diary and wrist actigraphy) influence anhedonia (assessed via ecological momentary assessment [EMA]) and cognitive inflexibility (assessed with behavioral task delivered via EMA) and, in turn, how these mechanisms increase risk for suicide ideation (SI; assessed via EMA) among 48 adolescents with a history of STBs during the month following discharge from acute psychiatric care. Together, these findings will clarify how sleep problems lead to suicide risk among high-risk youth. Further, these findings may provide insight into how we can not only improve sleep interventions for this population, but also determine if these interventions are working.