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Bad sleep increases seniors' risk of committing suicide, according to new research. The latest findings held true even after accounting for depression.

Researchers said the latest findings are important because suicide is preventable and claims 1 million lives every year.

Lead researcher Rebecca A. Bernert, Ph.D., of the Stanford University School of Medicine, California, and her team observed a sample of 420 individuals selected from 14,456 participants. Researchers noted that 400 of the participants were part of the control group and 20 patients died from suicide.

After analyzing the link between suicide and sleep in older adults with an average age of 75, researchers found that participants who reported poor sleep quality at the beginning of the decade-long study were 1.4 times more likely to commit suicide.

Even after controlling for depression, researchers found that those who suffered poor sleep quality were 1.2 times more likely to commit suicide during the 10-year study period.

Researchers found that experiencing difficulty falling asleep and nonrestorative sleep carried greater risk than other symptoms of poor sleep quality when determining suicide risk.

"We suggest that poor subjective sleep quality may therefore represent a useful screening tool and a novel therapeutic target for suicide prevention in late life," Bernert and her team wrote in the study.

The findings are published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.