Insomnia symptoms mediate relationship between suicide, alcohol use

A new study has recently provided a link between suicide risk with insomnia and alcohol use.

The research has showed that insomnia symptoms mediate the relationship between alcohol use and suicide risk, and that this mediation was moderated by gender. The study suggested that the targeted assessment and treatment of specific sleep problems might reduce the risk of suicide among those who use alcohol.

The study found that alcohol use was significantly associated with suicide risk among women. However, further analysis revealed that insomnia symptoms explained a significant proportion of the relationship between alcohol and suicide risk.

For men, there was no direct effect of alcohol use on suicide risk, but there was a significant indirect effect of alcohol use increasing suicide risk through insomnia symptoms.

Although the design of this study did not allow for an examination of causality, the present study lays the groundwork for future longitudinal investigations that further elucidate the relationship among alcohol use, insomnia symptoms and suicide risk.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.