Individuals with alcohol dependence were found to have a peak incidence of suicide at approximately 9 p.m. and a low around 5 p.m. Conversely, the peak suicide hour for sober individuals was 12 p.m., with a low at 4 a.m., according to a study in Sleep.
For the study, which was presented at SLEEP 2016, the 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Denver, researchers analyzed archival suicide data collected between 2003 and 2010 and compiled in the CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System. More than 73.4 percent of the individuals examined consumed alcohol prior to committing suicide. Researchers blocked the time of incidence into hour-long segments, then used hourly distribution to calculate the suicide occurrence over the circadian period.
Subhajit Chakravorty, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia and the study's lead author, said, "From a clinical perspective, the results will help us identify patients at higher risk of completing suicide and to allocate our limited resources more efficiently. From a research perspective, future studies should explore the underlying mechanisms of how and why different alcohol doses interact with the time of day and other clinical factors to increase the risk of suicide."