Sleep disturbance and suicide risk among sexual and gender minority people

Emily A Dolsen; Amy L Byers; Annesa Flentje; Joseph L Goulet; Guneet K Jasuja; Kristine E Lynch; Shira Maguen; Thomas C Neylan

doi:10.1016/j.ynstr.2022.100488

Sleep disturbance and suicide risk among sexual and gender minority people

Neurobiol Stress. 2022 Sep 15:21:100488. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2022.100488. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Emily A Dolsen^{1

2

3}, Amy L Byers^{2

4

5}, Annesa Flentje^{6

7}, Joseph L Goulet^{8

9}, Guneet K Jasuja^{10

11}, Kristine E Lynch^{12

13}, Shira Maguen^{1

2

3}, Thomas C Neylan^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Mental Health Service, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA.
² Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
³ Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Centers, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁴ Research Service, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁶ Department of Community Health Systems, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁷ Alliance Health Project, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
⁸ Yale School of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁹ VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, CT, USA.
¹⁰ Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, VA Bedford Healthcare System, Bedford, MA, USA.
¹¹ Section of General Internal Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
¹² VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI), VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
¹³ University of Utah School of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Abstract

Sleep disturbance has emerged as an independent, mechanistic, and modifiable risk factor for suicide. Sexual and gender minority (SGM) people disproportionately experience sleep disturbance and are at higher risk of death by suicide relative to cisgender and/or heterosexual individuals. The present narrative review evaluates nascent research related to sleep disturbance and suicide-related thoughts and behaviors (STBs) among SGM populations, and discusses how experiences of minority stress may explain heightened risk among SGM people. Although there is a growing understanding of the link between sleep disturbance and STBs, most research has not been conducted in SGM populations or has not examined suicide as an outcome. Research is needed to examine whether and how aspects of sleep disturbances relate to STBs among SGM people in order to better tailor sleep treatments for SGM populations.

Keywords: Gender minority people; LGBTQ; Minority stress; Sexual minority people; Sleep disturbance; Suicide.