But they also come with some fairly alarming potential side effects. The medication guide for Ambien, for example, warns that potential side effects may include aggressive behavior, confusion, depression, hallucinations and “suicidal thoughts or actions.”
Given this, who should take sedative-hypnotic medications, the class of drugs to which popular medications like Ambien and Lunesta belong? And how frequently do the drugs actually cause these problems?
A new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry says that answer is rather elusive.
The new study looked back at all previously published research linking suicide or suicidal thoughts with 11 different hypnotic drugs currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of insomnia. The study also included FDA safety reviews or commentaries about those 11 insomnia drugs, as well as detailed FDA reports of hypnotic-related suicide deaths dating back to the 1970s.
The evidence suggests that the increased risk of suicide among people taking hypnotics was anywhere from 2 to 24 times higher than the risk of suicide in people not taking sleep aids.
Risk of suicide or having suicidal thoughts associated with the prescription sleep aids appeared to be highest in the first few days of starting on the medication, which in some cases was accompanied by other unusual behaviors like sleep walking, confusion, hallucinations or paranoia.