Insomnia and suicidal behaviour in prisoners

Insomnia has been associated with suicidality. Prisoners have an increased risk of both insomnia and suicidal behaviour. Therefore, it was decided to examine for a relationship between insomnia and suicidal behaviour in a large group of 1420 prisoners. Prisoners had a semi-structured psychiatric interview, which included the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Spielberg Anger Expression Inventory and Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. It was found that 568 (61.2%) of the prisoners scored in the insomnia cluster of the HDRS and that 183 (12.8%) had attempted suicide. Regression analyses showed that insomnia was significantly and independently associated with a lifetime history of attempting suicide. Insomnia was also significantly related to actual suicidality. After controlling for confounders, axis 1 psychiatric disorder, childhood trauma, neuroticism, low resilience, and anger were significantly associated with insomnia in male prisoners. These data suggest the possibility of a relationship between insomnia and suicidality in prisoners. Assessing insomnia may be helpful when evaluating the risk of suicidality in prisoners.