ArticleBMJ open2017
Using a retrospective cross-sectional study to analyse unintentional fatal drowning in Australia: ICD-10 coding-based methodologies verses actual deaths.
Article in BMJ open, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Basic swimming or water safety skills training for drowning prevention in children: an updated systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- The burden, risk factors and prevention strategies for drowning in Türkiye: a systematic literature review.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Drowning in the Eastern Mediterranean region: a systematic literature review of the epidemiology, risk factors and strategies for prevention.BMC public health · 2022Pooled it
- Pre-Existing Medical Conditions: A Systematic Literature Review of a Silent Contributor to Adult Drowning.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Fatal intentional drowning in Australia: A systematic literature review of rates and risk factors.PloS one · 2020Pooled it
- Influence of a Survival Swimming Training Programme on Water Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and Skills: A Randomized Controlled Trial among Young Adults in Sri Lanka.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Trial
- Swimming pool-based assessment of drowning death risk in the Houston metropolitan region.Journal of safety research · 2026Article
- AquaAI: development and internal validation of a Danish transformer-based model to identify drowning and aquatic incidents in prehospital medical records.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Water-related fatalities in Salzburg and Upper Austria between 2015 and 2022 - a retrospective evaluation with a focus on the informative value of drowning signs.International journal of legal medicine · 2026Article
- Prehospital factors associated with ICU admission in drowning patients: a retrospective multicenter cohort study in a French coastal region.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Observational
- First global status report on drowning prevention identifies opportunities to scale up efforts.Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2026Article
- Burden of unintentional drowning in Indonesia: insights from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019.Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2025Article
- Probabilistic data linkage to study the epidemiology of unintentional fatal drowning in a large metropolitan region.Injury epidemiology · 2025Article
- Hospital admissions for non-fatal drowning in Finland, 2002-2023: a nationwide population-based register study.Injury epidemiology · 2025Article
- Burden and risk factors of premature drowning mortality in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2021.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Danish Drowning Cohort: Utstein-style data from fatal and non-fatal drowning incidents in Denmark.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Characteristics and critical care interventions in drowning patients treated by the Danish Air Ambulance from 2016 to 2021: a nationwide registry-based study with 30-day follow-up.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Enhancing Water Safety: Exploring Recent Technological Approaches for Drowning Detection.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Effectiveness of interventions to prevent drowning among children under age 20 years: a global scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Drowning prevention challenges and opportunities: An exploratory study of perspectives of delegates from ASEAN nations.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesFatal drowning estimates using a single underlying cause of death (UCoD) may under-represent the number of drowning deaths. This study explores how data vary by International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 coding combinations and the use of multiple underlying causes of death using a national register of drowning deaths.
designAn analysis of ICD-10 external cause codes of unintentional drowning deaths for the period 2007-2011 as extracted from an Australian total population unintentional drowning database developed by Royal Life Saving Society-Australia (the Database). The study analysed results against three reporting methodologies: primary drowning codes (W65-74), drowning-related codes, plus cases where drowning was identified but not the UCoD.
settingAustralia, 2007-2011.
participantsUnintentional fatal drowning cases.
resultsThe Database recorded 1428 drowning deaths. 866 (60.6%) had an UCoD of W65-74 (accidental drowning), 249 (17.2%) cases had an UCoD of either T75.1 (0.2%), V90 (5.5%), V92 (3.5%), X38 (2.4%) or Y21 (5.9%) and 53 (3.7%) lacked ICD coding. Children (aged 0-17 years) were closely aligned (73.9%); however, watercraft (29.2%) and non-aquatic transport (13.0%) were not. When the UCoD and all subsequent causes are used, 67.2% of cases include W65-74 codes. 91.6% of all cases had a drowning code (T75.1, V90, V92, W65-74, X38 and Y21) at any level.
conclusionDefining drowning with the codes W65-74 and using only the UCoD captures 61% of all drowning deaths in Australia. This is unevenly distributed with adults, watercraft and non-aquatic transport-related drowning deaths under-represented. Using a wider inclusion of ICD codes, which are drowning-related and multiple causes of death minimises this under-representation. A narrow approach to counting drowning deaths will negatively impact the design of policy, advocacy and programme planning for prevention.
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