Higher sleep duration may improve the risk of suicide attempts among adolescents experiencing bullying, according to new findings presented at the 2024 SLEEP Conference in Houston.
Bullying is a known risk factor for suicide attempts—which has more than doubled over the past 15 years. Previous studies have demonstrated that insufficient sleep may contribute to bullying and suicide attempts
In the new study also published in SLEEP, investigators used the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System to evaluate sleep duration, at-school and electronic bullying, and past-year suicide attempts among 17,134 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years.
The investigators found that 15% and 16% of the participants were bullied at school or electronically, respectively, and 77.3% of them did not achieve sufficient sleep duration. Further, 10.2% of them had attempted suicide and 29.3% of them reported experiencing poor mental health a majority of the time or always.
Compared with those who weren’t bullied, the investigators discovered adolescents who were bullied were three times more likely to attempt suicide (odds ratio [OR] = 3.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.4–3.7). Among the 10.7% of adolescents who achieved 4 hours or less of sleep, the risk of suicide attempts was twofold (OR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.5–3.0).
Additionally, sleep duration was found to moderate the link between at-school bullying and suicide attempts (F5, 44 = 3.1, P = .019) but was not statistically significant for electronic bullying. Among adolescents who achieved 7 hours of sleep and reported no bullying, suicide attempts were less prevalent.
The investigators underscored future studies may be needed to better understand how sleep duration moderates the risk of suicide among adolescents experiencing bullying.
A full list of disclosures can be found in the original study.