Association between sleep disturbances and suicidal thoughts in a large sample of university students

To assess the association between sleep and suicidal thoughts in French university students. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using baseline data from the i-Share study, i.e. a database of health information for a large cohort of students. Multinomial logistic regression models adjusted for potential confounders were used to assess the association between sleep and suicidal thoughts. Missing data were imputed. In the sample of 6411 participants, nearly one in five students reported having suicidal thoughts in the past 12 months: 17.7% reported occasional suicidal thoughts (yes, it has happened to me) and 4.6% reported frequent suicidal thoughts (yes, multiple times). One in five students (21.5%) reported frequent insomnia (≥3 times per week). After adjustment, the risk of frequent suicidal thoughts was 50% higher in students with insomnia than in those without insomnia. The frequency of suicidal thoughts increased with the frequency of sleep problems. Similar results were observed for sleepiness, sleep deprivation, and sleep quality. An association was found between each sleep disturbance and suicidal thoughts after adjusting for depressive and anxiety symptoms. Sleep is a readily assessable clinical marker of suicidal thoughts and may be a more acceptable treatment target than other behaviours.