Rebecca Robbins, PhD, of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Problems at Brigham and Girls’s Hospital, is the senior writer of a paper printed in Psychiatry Analysis, “Exploring sleep difficulties, alcohol, illicit medication, and suicidal ideation amongst adolescents with a historical past of despair.”
How would you summarize your examine for a lay viewers?
Suicide is likely one of the main causes of demise for adolescents within the U.S. We all know, attributable to earlier analysis, that issue falling asleep or waking up too early in addition to abuse of prescribed drugs, sedative and opioids is related to considering, planning or trying suicide -; in any other case generally known as, suicide ideation.
Utilizing responses from the 2015 to 2020 Nationwide Surveys of Drug Use and Well being (NSDUH), our staff analyzed and quantified the associations between sleep difficulties and suicidal ideation amongst adolescents with a historical past of despair and the way these associations have been amplified by illicit drug and/or alcohol abuse/dependence. We discovered vital associations between sleeping difficulties and suicide ideation amongst adolescents with a historical past of despair, and a extra sturdy affiliation between sleep difficulties when the particular person reported alcohol abuse/dependence and people who reported illicit drug abuse/dependence up to now yr
What information gaps does your examine assist to fill?
By way of our evaluation, we quantified the connection between sleep issue and substance use amongst adolescents with a historical past of despair. Our work suggests vital associations between sleep difficulties, illicit drug use and suicidal ideation in adolescents with signs of main depressive episodes.
How did you conduct your examine?
We analyzed NSDUH survey outcomes from 38,418 respondents between the ages of 12 to 17 over a five-year interval. Questions within the surveys requested respondents about their sleep difficulties, suicide ideation signs, illicit drug use and despair signs.
From that dataset, 11.6% reported serious about suicide, 5.7% reported planning a suicide try and three.8% reported making a suicide try. Moreover, 16.7% reported sleeping difficulties. Respondents who engaged with alcohol abuse had associations with sleep difficulties and makes an attempt of suicide. Respondents who partook in illicit drug abuse had associations with sleep difficulties and considering and trying suicide.
What are the implications?
The findings of our work are in keeping with previous analysis connecting issue in sleeping with psychological well being considerations, reminiscent of suicide ideation. Happily, behavioral interventions, therapies and medicines can deal with sufferers who expertise difficulties in sleeping.
There are just a few limitations to our examine, subsequently, our outcomes ought to be interpreted with warning. Within the dataset, there was one query about sleeping difficulties. As well as, primarily based on the format of the questions within the survey, it is potential sleep issue and suicide habits signs have been skilled multiple yr earlier than and alcohol and illicit drug use occurred within the yr previous to the responses.
What are the subsequent steps?
Happily, sleep difficulties are treatable with behavioral remedy and medicine. Future analysis could embody designing sleep well being interventions which are tailor-made to the wants of adolescents combating psychological well being considerations and/or substance use/abuse.
Supply:
Journal reference:
Robbins, R., et al. (2024). Exploring sleep difficulties, alcohol, illicit medication, and suicidal ideation amongst adolescents with a historical past of despair. Psychiatry Analysis. doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2024.116116.
