Nurse Suicide: Physiologic Sleep Health Promotion Trial

Despite being the largest healthcare workforce in the United States (US) (\~5 million nurses), evidence about suicidal ideation and predisposing factors that contribute to suicide in nurses is limited. Outside of nursing, there is substantial evidence that an individual's psychiatric characteristics (psychiatric diagnosis; decision-making; social cognition; mood) and/or life stressors (e.g., death of a loved one, divorce, discrimination, or lateral violence) are significantly associated to suicidal ideation. Yet, it is unclear why nurses have higher rates of suicide compared to other populations and which factors predispose nurses to higher risk for suicidal behavior. It has become critical to test new approaches to reduce stress in nurses and subsequently mitigate suicide ideation. There is early evidence that sleep disturbances may induce increased stress and subsequently higher psychological risk, including depression, a known predisposing risk factor for suicidal risk. Evidence about the associations between sleep and suicidal ideation is limited but early studies show promise that interventions promoting sleep health may help mitigate suicidal risk. The isolation of predisposing factors for stress in nurses and investigation of potential interventions to counteract such stress may help to identify and mitigate suicide risk in nurses. Past evidence about suicide has been limited to post-mortem data inhibiting an understanding of which personal, psychosocial, and work environment factors predispose a nurse to suicidal behaviors. The combined study of self-report and physiologic data may help us better understand sources of stress adaptation in the search for underlying biological mechanisms associated with suicide and other suboptimal psychologic health outcomes.