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Spending time behind bars can significantly increase a person's risk of committing suicide.

Swedish researchers from the Karolinska Institute found that people who've served prison sentences were 18 times more likely than those in the general population to commit suicide. The study also revealed that the risk of suicide is the highest people just released from prison and those with a history of drug addiction and previous suicide attempts.

Researchers compared data from 27,000 people who were released from Swedish prisons between 2005 and 2009 to 27,000 matched participants from the general population.

The study revealed that ex-prisoners were 18 times more likely than people in the general population to take their lives. Researchers noted that the risk was highest in the first four weeks after release.

"Our findings might be able to provide guidance in assessing suicide risk and for suicide prevention efforts by health care, probation services and social services for persons previously in prison care. Having been released from prison is an independent risk factor for suicide, even if the release is a few years in the past," researcher Axel Haglund, senior consultant in psychiatry and doctoral student at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, said in a news release.

"One possible explanation is that those who have been in prison did not seek or receive treatment for their depression, which was thus under-treated. Another possible explanation is that it is primarily substance abuse and not depression that leads to suicide in individuals who have served a prison sentence. This is something that there is cause to look at further at in future studies," concluded Haglund.

The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.