A new study links smartphones, sleep problems, and access to pills to teen suicide attempts.
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine sifted through data from patients between the ages of 15 and 17 who were admitted to the psychiatry unit following a suicide attempt by overdosing on pills. They found two-thirds happened after 8 p.m., and that three out of four of the individuals were on screens right before the overdose.
"If you have poor sleep hygiene, or if you are on screens late in the night, and you have access to pills, those three form a really bad combination," says Abhishek Reddy, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Carilion Clinic and an assistant professor at the medical school.
Previous studies have looked at the role of sleep habits, screen use, and access to pills in adolescent mental health, but not at the combination. Reddy says parents should help their children practice good sleep hygiene by limiting sugar and caffeine before bedtime, limiting access to pills, and disconnecting from smartphones and social media an hour before bedtime. And this may be hard for some folks, but it helps if family members all join in.
"When families get involved in the good screen hygiene routine, it helps kids a lot," Reddy says. "It's harder for them to understand when the parents tell them, 'Hey, go to your room, turn off the lights, go to sleep,' when the adults are watching TV, or tell the kids, 'Don't watch the screen' when the adults are on the screen. But when everybody does it, I think they learn it and understand it better."
Reddy and his team will present their research at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry annual meeting later this month.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
