Key points:
- A new study suggests melatonin may reduce self-harm in young people with anxiety and depression.
- Self-harm decreased by about half in the months following melatonin treatment.
- The study cannot establish a causal relationship, but makes the case for more research into the topic.
A new study suggests the popular medical sleep treatment melatonin may reduce self-harm in young people with anxiety and depression, especially girls. Since 2020, the over-the-counter hormone has become a commonly prescribed drug for sleep disturbances in children and adolescents across the globe.
“Given the established link between sleep problems, depression, and self-harm, we wanted to explore whether medical sleep treatment is associated with a lower rate of intentional self-harm in young people,” said Sarah Bergen, author of the study and researcher at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
The study, published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, examined over 25,500 children and teenagers between the ages of 6 and 18 who were prescribed melatonin in Sweden. Over 87 percent of the youth had at least one or more psychiatric disorders, mainly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety disorders or autism. Self-harm was about 5 times more prevalent in girls than in boys.
The researchers estimated the risks of self-harm in the same individual while on or off medication by comparing the risk in the last unmedicated month with the 12 months after melatonin treatment was initiated. By doing so, they were able to take into account background factors that may affect associations, such as genetics, sleep disorder severity or psychiatric disorders.
The risk of self-harm increased shortly before melatonin was prescribed and decreased by about half in the months following the initiation of treatment. Risk reduction was particularly evident among adolescent girls with depression and/or anxiety disorders.
Due to the observational nature of the study, the researchers cannot establish a causal relationship between melatonin and reduced self-harm rates. With further examination, they found similar results of reduced self-harm with other medications.
“This suggests that melatonin might be responsible for the reduced self-harm rates, but we cannot rule out that the use of other psychiatric medications or psychotherapy may have influenced the findings,” said Marica Leone, first author of the study and former Ph.D. student in Bergen’s research group.