Teens With Insomnia at Increased Risk for Depression, Suicide, Substance Abuse

Teenagers who exhibit symptoms of insomnia are more likely than other teens to develop depression or problems with substance abuse or to entertain thoughts of suicide by the time they reach early adulthood, according to a study recently concluded at the University of North Texas.

Brandy M. Roane, MS, led the study of 4,494 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old and 3,582 young adults aged 18 to 25. The students were selected from 145 middle, junior, and high schools across the United States and each study participant was followed for six or seven years.

At the beginning of the study, each participant reported no signs of depression or substance abuse but 9.4% of them did report symptoms of insomnia, which include having trouble falling asleep every night or almost every night. In-home interviews with parents or guardians and self-reports provided by the study participants provided pertinent background data.

Over the course of the study, adolescents with insomnia were found to be 2.3 times more likely to develop symptoms of depression over their fellow students without insomnia. These same students were more likely to indulge in consumption of alcohol, cannabis, and other drugs, including cocaine, by the time they reached early adulthood.

While insomnia was an influencing factor in the development of depression, suicidal tendencies, and substance abuse, gender was a factor even when insomnia was not present. Males were found to be at greater risk of developing substance abuse issues while females were found to be at twice the risk of developing depression.

Roane says her study may help alert educators, mentors, and parents to the risk of negative health effects associated with teenage insomnia and says it is augmented by previous research in adults that reached similar conclusions.

Details of the study can be found in the October 1 issue of Sleep, the official journal published by the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC, which is a joint venture involving the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

Filed under: Adolescents, Alcohol, Depression, Prevention, Sleep, Substance Abuse

Tags: insomnia

Comments

2 Responses to “Teens With Insomnia at Increased Risk for Depression, Suicide, Substance Abuse”

George Hardwick on October 2nd, 2008 11:58

It’s interesting that one of the main causes of suicide linked to drug use is not usually mentioned. It’s been founf that SSRI’s cause severely depressed people to raise their energy level enough after the first couple of weeks treatment to commit suicide. So, it’s actually prescribed drugs and a lack of close supervision during a critical time which effectively kill many depressed patients. But, who really wants to know about this issue anyway? Also, one recent study out of Australia screamed out about how cannabis increased the risk of psychosis in users. When the actual numbers showed that only 1 in 140,000 people were at increased risk of this malady. No mention of how Alcohol is far more destructive and causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. While cannabis has never killed anyone. Perhaps this is because alcohol is a legal drug. Also, no one ever points out that incidents of psychosis have actually decreased substantially over the last 30 years. And, that cannabis use has gone up the same amount inversely at the same time. Could it be that many schizophrenics and depressives are actually successfully self treating their ailments? But, these points will most likely never be researched as the NIDA only pays for cannabis research that shows negative findings. Is it any wonder that this is exactly what the NIDA always gets from their researchers? Oh, except for the Medical University of Virginia study in the 70’s meant to find a cannabis cancer connection. It actually showed that cannabis has anti-cancer properties. But, those results were destroyed on the orders of the NIDA. So, they don’t count. Do they?
Teens with Insomnia at Increased Risk for Depression, Suicide, Substance Abuse « The Daily HIT on October 4th, 2008 15:03

[...] 4, 2008 by Daniel Redwood, DC Insomnia may be a risk factor for developing a variety of emotion-related symptoms, according to a new study published in the [...]