Abstract

Older adults have high rates of sleep disturbance, die by suicide at disproportionately higher rates compared with other age groups, and tend to visit their physician in the weeks preceding suicide death. To our knowledge, to date, no study has examined disturbed sleep as an independent risk factor for late-life suicide.To examine the relative independent risk for suicide associated with poor subjective sleep quality in a population-based study of older adults during a 10-year observation period.A longitudinal case-control cohort study of late-life suicide among a multisite, population-based community sample of older adults participating in the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. Of 14?456 community older adults sampled, 400 control subjects were matched (on age, sex, and study site) to 20 suicide decedents.Primary measures included the Sleep Quality Index, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale, and vital statistics.Hierarchical logistic regressions revealed that poor sleep quality at baseline was significantly associated with increased risk for suicide (odds ratio [OR], 1.39; 95% CI, 1.14-1.69; P?

View details for DOI 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.1126

View details for PubMedID 25133759