Defeat and Entrapment Mediate the Relationship Between Insomnia Symptoms and Suicidal Ideation in Young Adults

Abstract

Aim

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in understanding the relationship between sleep disturbance and suicide. The current study aimed to advance understanding of the psychological processes driving these relationships by examining whether insomnia symptoms are related to suicidal ideation via perceptions of defeat and entrapment.

Methods

Young adults (n = 259; 202 students [78.0%], 45 employed [17.4%], 12 unemployed [4.6%]) completed an anonymous self-report survey that was advertised via social media, university participant pools, and fliers. The survey was described as being related to sleep and mood/mental health. Validated measures were used to assess insomnia symptoms, chronotype, defeat, entrapment, suicidal ideation, and affective covariates.

Results

Bivariate associations found insomnia severity to be related to poorer affective outcomes including severity of suicidal ideation. Insomnia and depression were significant independent variables in multiple linear regression with suidical ideation as the dependent variable. The relationship between insomnia and suicidal ideation was mediated by perceptions of defeat and entrapment.

Conclusion

Taken together, these findings shed light on the psychological mechanisms linking sleep disturbance and suicidal ideation by highlighting the role of defeat and entrapment. These findings have the potential to improve suicide risk assessment and prevention in young adults experiencing difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep.

Highlights

• Defeat and entrapment mediate relationship between insomnia and suicidal ideation

• Evidence for Integrated Motivational–Volitional Model of Suicidal Behavior in community sample

• Uses validated multi-item suicide measure

Keywords:

• Insomnia
• Integrated Motivational–Volitional Model of Suicidal Behavior
• sleep disturbance
• suicide
• young adults

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and useful comments which significantly improved the content of this manuscript.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

None to report.

AUTHOR NOTES

Daniel R. R. Bradford, Stephany M. Biello, and Kirsten Russell, School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.

Notes

1 Data collection ended prior to large-scale COVID-19–related restrictions being placed on people’s behaviors.

2 Results of analysis using Winsorized data are available in supplementary online material. There are minimal differences in results compared with using baseline data.

3 This is an order of magnitude higher than the typical 5,000 bootstrap iterations. A sensitivity analysis showed that using 5,000 iterations led to variation in the results of the mediation analysis with repeated runs. By using 50,000 iterations this variation was negated.

Additional information

Funding

Work done as part of master's degree so no funding support.