Accidental poisoning

Accidental poisoning is caused by exposure to an amount of a substance that harms the body. It leads to thousands of hospitalisations and more than a thousand deaths in Australia each year, and mostly involves pharmaceutical drugs. In this report, the term ‘pharmaceutical drugs’ includes those prescribed by a health practitioner and those obtained by any other means.

In 2019–20, accidental poisoning resulted in:

This represents 2.1% of injury hospitalisations and 11% of injury deaths.

Intentional poisoning injuries are included under Self-harm and suicide and Assault and homicide. The adverse effects of correctly prescribed and consumed drugs are not included in this report.

Substances involved in accidental poisoning hospitalisations

In 2019–20:

• harmful exposure to pharmaceutical drugs made up 83% of accidental poisoning hospitalisations (Table 1)
• harmful exposure to other substances, including alcohol, organic solvents and gases, comprised the other 17% of accidental poisoning hospitalisations (Table 2). 

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population, calculated using estimated resident population as at 31 December of the relevant year.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables B7–8.

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population, calculated using estimated resident population as at 31 December of the relevant year.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Organic solvents and halogenated hydrocarbons and their vapours include aerosol and solvent-based products such as, deodorant, hair care products, laughing gas (nitrous oxide), paint, paint thinner, glue, nail polish remover, cleaning spray, felt-tip markers, mineral turpentine, methylated spirits and petrol.
4. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables B7–8.

Substances involved in accidental poisoning deaths

In 2019–20:

• harmful exposure to pharmaceutical drugs made up 85% of accidental poisoning hospitalisations
• alcohol was the most common non-pharmaceutical cause of accidental poisoning hospitalisations (Table 3). 

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population, calculated using estimated resident population as at 31 December of the relevant year.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10 external cause codes (WHO 2011).

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables E10–11.

Seasonality and COVID-19

Hospital admissions due to accidental poisoning do not appear to exhibit a seasonal pattern, remaining relatively steady throughout the year.

In March 2020, the first lockdowns and social distancing measures associated with COVID-19 interrupted the usual activity of many Australians. The initial restrictions to movement and activity do not appear to have strongly impacted accidental poisoning injuries, with almost the same number of hospitalisations occurring in March to May (0.3% less) as in same period of the previous year (Figure 1). However, there appear to have been slightly less admissions in March 2020 and more in May 2020 than in the same months of the previous years.

See the interactive COVID-19 display for data and further discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on hospital admissions.

Figure 1: Accidental poisoning hospitalisations by month, 2017–18 to 2019–20

Notes
1. Months have been standardised to 31 days.
2. A scale up factor has been applied to June admissions to account for cases not yet separated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Trends over time

The age-standardised rate of hospitalisations due to poisoning in 2019–20 was 1.6% higher than a year earlier. It is difficult to determine whether this increase was impacted by the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing.

Over the period from 2009–10 to 2016–17, there was an average annual increase of 1.6% for the age-standardised rate of accidental poisoning hospitalisations. There is a break in the time series for hospitalisations between 2016–17 and 2017–18 due to a change in data collection methods (see the Technical notes for details).

For deaths due to poisoning, the age-standardised rate for 2019–20 was 1.5% lower than a year earlier. The average annual increase in rate between 2010–11 and 2019–20 was 1.1% (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Accidental poisoning hospitalisations and deaths, by sex, 2010–11 to 2019–20

For more detail, see Data tables C1–7 and F1–4.

Variation by age and sex

Accidental poisoning hospitalisation rates were similar for males and females, but the male rate of death was more than twice the rate of females. Age patterns were also markedly different between hospitalisations and deaths (Figure 3).

For accidental poisonings in 2019–20:

• males made up a greater proportion of both the hospitalisations (55%) and the deaths (70%) than females
• people aged 25–44 and 45–64 had much higher rates of accidental poisoning deaths than other age groups (9.3 and 10.1 per 100,000 population, respectively)
• young children aged 0–4 had the highest rate of accidental poisoning hospitalisation (95 per 100,000 population).

Figure 3: Accidental poisoning hospitalisations and deaths, by age group and sex, 2019–20

For more detail, see Data tables A1–3 and D1–3.

Severity

There are many ways that the severity, or seriousness, of an injury can be measured. Using available data, three measures of the severity of hospitalised injuries are:

• number of days in hospital
• time in an intensive care unit (ICU)
• time on a ventilator.

The average number of days in hospital for accidental poisoning was less than the average for all injury hospitalisations, but the percentage of cases that included either time in an ICU or on continuous ventilatory support were higher than for all (Table 4).

Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from 1 hospital to another or transfers from 1 admitted care type to another within the same hospital, except where care involves rehabilitation procedures.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A12–13.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

In 2019–20, among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

• there were 881 hospitalisations and 93 deaths due to accidental poisoning (Tables 5 and 6)
• males were 1.1 times as likely as females to be hospitalised and 1.4 times as likely to die due to accidental poisoning
• hospitalisation rates were highest for children aged 0–4.

Note: Persons includes cases where sex is intersex, indeterminate or missing.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Deaths data only includes data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A4–5 and D4-5.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

In 2019–20, Indigenous Australians, compared with non-Indigenous Australians, after adjusting for differences in population age structure, were:

• 2.9 times as likely to be hospitalised due to accidental poisoning (Table 7)
• 2.9 times as likely to die because of accidental poisoning (Table 8).

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. ‘Other Australians’ includes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.
3. Deaths data only includes data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A6 and D8.

The age-specific rate of accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases was highest among the 0–4 life-stage age group for both Indigenous and other Australians (Figure 4). Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 4: Accidental poisoning hospitalisations by Indigenous status, by age group and sex, 2019–20

For more detail, see Data tables A4–A6 and D4–D8.

Remoteness

In 2019–20, people living in Very remote areas had the highest rate of hospitalisation by accidental poisoning and people living in Major cities areas had the lowest rate. People living in Very remote areas, using age-standardised rates, were 1.6 times as likely to be hospitalised due to poisoning as those living in Major cities (Table 9).

People living in Inner regional areas had higher rates of death by accidental poisoning than those in Major cities or Outer regional areas (Table 10).

Note: Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

n.p. not publishable because of small numbers, confidentiality or other concerns about the quality of the data.

Note: Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A9 and D9.

The highest age-specific rate of accidental poisoning hospitalisations was among the 0–4 life-stage age group living in Very remote areas of Australia. (Figure 5).

Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 5: Accidental poisoning hospitalisations by remoteness, by age group and sex, 2019–20

For more detail, see Data tables A7–A9 and D9–10.

For information on how statistics by remoteness are calculated, see Technical notes.

More information

Defining injury hospitalisations and deaths: how injuries were counted

Technical notes: how the data were calculated

Data tables: download the full tables

Glossary