Worst time of year and day for suicidal thoughts and behaviours examined

Researchers have identified December as the month when people in the US, UK and Canada are the most likely to have suicidal thoughts

Researchers have identified December as the month when people in the US, UK and Canada are the most likely to have suicidal thoughts and the hours between 4 am and 6 am when they were most likely to die by suicide.

They also found that these thoughts occurred a few months before suicidal behaviours peak in spring or early summer.

The research from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology, UK, led in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Harvard University, US, examined the seasonal paths of suicidal thoughts and identified when suicidal thoughts peak during the year and also what time of day these thoughts are the worst.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature Translational Psychiatry.

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While most people assume suicide rates to be the highest in winter, spring or early summer is when suicidal behaviours have been found to peak, a finding that has baffled researchers since first identified.

In this study, the researchers further found a general increase in negative self-harm cognitions and seasonality effects for mood and desire to die across the six-year period, over which responses from over 10,000 people were collected. The subjects completed questionnaires and tasks about their moods and thoughts and ideations around suicide and self-harm using the Project Implicit Health Database (PIH).