Methods: Non-fatal drowning hospitalisation

Non-fatal drowning refers to drowning events (i.e. the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid) where the outcome was not death.

Both the Royal Life Saving Society Australia (RLSSA) and the AIHW publish data on non-fatal and fatal drowning events within New South Wales and Australia. Across these publications there are varying inclusion and exclusion criteria. RLSSA advocate for a broader definition of drowning using a wider range of ICD codes in the analysis of non-fatal drownings to more accurately capture the scale of the issue for public health policy development (RLSSA 2017). The reporting of non-fatal drownings for this indicator aligns with the RLSSA recommendation.

Diagnosis and/or ‘External cause’ as the basis for non-fatal drowning count

The cases of non-fatal drowning hospitalisations are based on any admission with an ICD-10-AM diagnosis code of T75.1 (drowning or submersion) and/or an 'external cause of injury' related to drowning or submersion. Intentional self-harm or assault are excluded as they are non-informative with respect to non-fatal drowning prevention planning.

Records based on location of treatment

The analysis of non-fatal drowning admissions is based on the location of treatment regardless of the person’s normal place of residence. As such, it comprises all admissions to NSW hospitals including interstate and overseas visitors. Admissions of NSW residents to interstate hospitals are excluded.

This provides a proxy for incident location reporting as location where non-fatal drowning occurred is not routinely collected in hospitalisation statistics.

Rules for excluding records in analysis of hospitalisation for injury

In HealthStats NSW, injury hospitalisation data exclude records with source of referral being a transfer from another hospital or a type change admission to reduce double counting of hospitalisation episodes relating to the same injury incident. Further, rehabilitation episodes are excluded for similar reasons.

References

Royal Life Saving Society - Australia (2017). A 13 year National Study of Non-Fatal Drowning in Australia. Data Challenges, Hidden Impacts and Social Costs. Available at: https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/19938/3985_v4_RLS_NonFatalSymposium_ReportHR_PROOF_LR.pdf