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

OBJECTIVES: 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. DESIGN: National cross-sectional study. SETTING: Households in England. PARTICIPANTS: We analysed data for 7546 household residents in England, aged 16 and over from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. EXPOSURES: Sensory impairment (either visual or hearing), Dual sensory impairment (visual and hearing), visual impairment, hearing impairment. PRIMARY OUTCOME: Suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in the past year. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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.