Association Between Opioid Use Disorder and Suicidal Ideation among Veterans and Non-Veterans who Endorsed Lifetime Major Depression with Sleep Disturbance (Board#19)

Abstract : Associations Between Opioid Use Disorder and Suicidal Ideation among Veterans and Non-Veterans who Endorsed Lifetime Major Depression with Sleep Disturbance
Intended Audience: Military/Veterans, Clinicans

Aims: Prior research has demonstrated associations between opioid use disorder (OUD) and suicidal ideation among both veterans and non-veterans. The goal of this study was to corroborate these analyses in a recent nationally representative data set, while also extending this work to the context of depression-related sleep disturbance.

Methods: Data was drawn from the public use 2021/2022 SAMSHA National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Two separate logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the odds of reporting past-year suicidal ideation (yes/no) as a function of past-year DSM-5 OUD diagnosis (yes/no) among veterans (n = 792) and non-veterans (n = 17144), respectively, who also endorsed having experienced a lifetime major depressive episode with symptoms of sleep disturbance (i.e., difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, waking too early, sleeping more than usual). Covariates included gender, age, and past-year major depressive episode (yes/no).

Results: Past-year OUD was associated with increased odds of suicidal ideation among both veterans (OR = 2.532, 95% CI [1.260, 5.085], p = .009) and non-veterans (OR = 1.966, 95% CI [1.651, 2.340], p < .001) who endorsed a lifetime major depressive episode with sleep disturbance.

Conclusions: Results indicated that the odds of reporting suicidal ideation among veterans with OUD were 2.5 times higher than among veterans without OUD, whereas the odds of reporting suicidal ideation among non-veterans with OUD were 2.0 times higher than among non-veterans without OUD. Notably, this sample was limited to respondents who endorsed having experienced a lifetime major depressive episode with symptoms of sleep disturbance. Given prior research linking suicidal ideation with OUD, depression, and sleep disturbance, future work would benefit from examining the unique contribution of these factors in suicidality risk considerations.

Learning objective: At the end of this poster presentation, participants should be able to distinguish between the influence of OUD on suicidality in the context of depressive sleep disturbances in veterans and non-veterans