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Hospital-admitted drowning in Victoria, Australia, before and after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic
  1. Janneke Berecki-Gisolf1,
  2. Bernadette Matthews2,3,
  3. Hannah Calverley2,
  4. Jonathan Abrahams1,4,
  5. Amy E Peden5
  1. 1Monash University Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2Research and Health Promotion, Life Saving Victoria, Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. 4Monash University Disaster Resilience Initiative, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
  5. 5School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Amy E Peden, School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, 2052, Australia; a.peden{at}unsw.edu.au

Abstract

Objectives To examine trends in hospitalisation following drowning in Victoria, Australia, before and after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design Retrospective analysis of administrative hospital admission records.

Setting Hospital admissions recorded in the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset.

Participants Hospital-admitted patients with ≥1 drowning-related International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification diagnosis code.

Main outcome measures Incidence and incidence rate ratios (IRR; 95% CIs) of hospital-admitted drowning that occurred before (July 2017 to June 2019), during (July 2019 to June 2021) and after (July 2021 to June 2022) the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results There were 736 hospital admissions related to drowning in the study period; the incidence was 2.6 per 100 000 population pre-COVID-19 and dropped to 2.0 per 100 000 during (2019/2020–2020/2021) and after (2021/2022) the onset of the pandemic. Among Victorian residents, drowning was positively associated with younger age, male sex and regional/remote residence. Drowning was negatively associated with the onset of COVID-19 (IRR 0.76 (0.64, 0.90)) as well as the post-COVID-19 period (0.78 (0.64, 0.97)), compared with pre-COVID-19. Natural water drowning rates were consistently higher than pool or bathtub drowning rates. Pool or bathtub drowning rates decreased with the onset of COVID-19; no significant change was observed in the natural water drowning rate.

Conclusion(s) Pool and bathtub drowning rates declined since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite more time spent at home, while natural water drowning rates remained consistently high. Hospital admissions provide a valuable data source for monitoring of drowning, which is crucial to ensure a targeted, evidence-based approach to mitigate drowning risk.

  • Drowning
  • Policy
  • COVID-19
  • Education
  • Public Health

Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The first author had full access to the data in the study. The unit record data cannot be made available upon request by the researchers as this would breach the data use agreement, but Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) data can be requested directly from the Victorian Agency for Health Information.

https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2023-045206

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    Data availability statement

    Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The first author had full access to the data in the study. The unit record data cannot be made available upon request by the researchers as this would breach the data use agreement, but Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) data can be requested directly from the Victorian Agency for Health Information.

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    Footnotes

    • X @amyepeden

    • Contributors JB-G ran the data analysis and is responsible for the overall content as guarantor. AEP, BLM, HC and JB-G prepared the first draft of the manuscript. All authors conceptualised the study. All authors critically revised the manuscript and approved the submitted version.

    • Funding The Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit (VISU) is supported by the Victorian Government.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.