Association between sensory impairment and suicidal ideation and attempt: a cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative English household data.

Abstract

Sensory impairments are associated with worse mental health and poorer quality of life, but few studies have investigated whether sensory impairment is associated with suicidal behaviour in a population sample. We investigated whether visual and hearing impairments were associated with suicidal ideation and attempt. National cross-sectional study. Households in England. We analysed data for 7546 household residents in England, aged 16 and over from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. Sensory impairment (either visual or hearing), Dual sensory impairment (visual and hearing), visual impairment, hearing impairment. Suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in the past year. People with visual or hearing sensory impairments had twice the odds of past-year suicidal ideation (OR 2.06; 95% CI 1.17 to 2.73; p<0.001), and over three times the odds of reporting past-year suicide attempt (OR 3.12; 95% CI 1.57 to 6.20; p=0.001) compared with people without these impairments. Similar results were found for hearing and visual impairments separately and co-occurring. We found evidence that individuals with sensory impairments are more likely to have thought about or attempted suicide in the past year than individuals without.