ArticleJournal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine2022
Associations between treatment with melatonin and suicidal behavior: a nationwide cohort study.
Article in Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Suicidal Ideation Following a Single Dose of Melatonin in a Patient With Major Depressive Disorder: A Case Report.Clinical case reports · 2026Article
- Unintended consequences: college students' melatonin usage, sleep disturbance, and depressive symptoms.Sleep and biological rhythms · 2024Article
- The investigation of relationship between serum melatonin levels with Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation in suicide patients.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2024Article
- Inflammatory pathology in depression and suicide: a mechanistic distillation of clinical correlates.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Relationship between mental health literacy and professional psychological help-seeking attitudes in China: a chain mediation model.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Eyes wide open: sleep disturbance, not melatonin, is the real issue to address for suicide risk.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
objectivesMelatonin is often prescribed to patients with sleep disorders who are known to have elevated suicide risks, yet melatonin's association with suicidal behavior remains to be examined. We investigated whether individuals prescribed melatonin had higher rates of suicide and suicide attempts when compared to individuals who were not prescribed this drug, including both those with and without known mental disorders.
methodsA cohort design was applied to longitudinal, register data on all persons aged ≥ 10 years in Denmark during 2007-2016. Based on data from the National Prescription Registry, periods of being in treatment with melatonin were defined using information on the number of tablets and the daily defined dose. We calculated incidence rate ratios for suicide and suicide attempts, as identified in register records, comparing those in treatment with melatonin to those not in treatment.
resultsAmong 5,798,923 individuals, 10,577 (0.2%) were treated with melatonin (mean treatment length, 50 days) during the study period. Of those, 22 died by suicide and 134 had at least 1 suicide attempt. People in treatment with melatonin had a 4-fold higher rate of suicide (incidence rate ratio, 4.8; 95% CI, 3.0-7.5) and a 5-fold higher rate of suicide attempt (incidence rate ratio, 5.9; 95% CI, 4.4-8.0) than those not in treatment and when adjusting for sex and age group.
conclusionsTreatment with melatonin was associated with suicide and suicide attempt. Although there are several possible explanations, attention to suicide risk is particularly warranted for people with mental comorbidity who are in treatment with melatonin. CITATION: Høier NK, Madsen T, Spira AP, et al. Associations between treatment with melatonin and suicidal behavior: a nationwide cohort study.
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