The Relationship Between Sleep Disturbance, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, and Suicide Among Adults: A Systematic Review

Suicide is a significant global health concern; identification of modifiable risk factors can guide future research and prevention efforts. A systematic literature review was undertaken to summarize whether disrupted sleep, which has garnered increased attention as a risk factor for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, has continued to be associated with suicide in recent years. The search resulted in 1,806 abstracts with 188 identified for full text review. Limiting studies to 2012-2015 publications with adult participants and an interpretable relationship between sleep and suicide outcomes left 36 articles for the review. Five new articles focused on suicide decedents, eight on veteran/military populations, but relatively few were longitudinal studies (n = 4) and none assessed sleep apnea. A majority of studies used statistical methods to control for psychopathology, strengthening the overall finding that recent work lends further support for disrupted sleep as an important risk factor, and potential warning sign, for suicide.