Injury in Australia: accidental poisoning

Accidental poisoning is caused by exposure to an amount of a substance that harms the body. This causes thousands of hospitalisation and deaths in Australia each year, mainly involving pharmaceutical drugs or, to a lesser extent, other substances, such as alcohol and chemicals. The terms ‘pharmaceutical drugs’ and ‘pharmaceuticals’ as used in this report include both drugs prescribed by a health practitioner or obtained by other means, including illegally.

In 2017–18, 2.0% of hospitalised injury cases and 11% of injury deaths were due to accidental poisoning.

Hospitalisation cases and deaths involving intentional poisoning are included under Self-harm injuries and suicide and Assault and homicide.

In 2017–18, accidental poisoning resulted in:

This article only includes data on injuries that result in hospital admission or death. If a person dies from an injury after being admitted to hospital, both the hospitalisation and the death is included in this report. For more information, see Defining injury hospitalisation cases and injury deaths.

Which substances are involved in hospitalisations due to accidental poisoning?

In 2017–18:

• harmful exposure to pharmaceutical drugs made up 84% of accidental poisoning hospitalisation cases (Table 1)
• harmful exposure to other substances, including alcohol, organic solvents and gases, comprised the other 16% of accidental poisoning hospitalisation cases (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 (10th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2017).

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

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 (10th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2017).

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detailed data, see Data tables B5–8.

Trends over time

Since 2008–09, there has been:

• a 1.0% annual average increase in accidental poisoning hospitalisation rates to 2016–17
• a 1.4% annual average increase in accidental poisoning death rates to 2017–18.

Annual average rate changes are calculated using modelled age-standardised rates (see Technical notes for more details).

Because of changes in data collection methods, hospitalisations data for 2017–18 should not be compared with those of previous years and are not included in Figure 1 (see Technical notes for more details). Death data for 2017–18 are comparable with rates for previous years.

Figure 1: Accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases and deaths, by age group and sex, 2008–09 to 2016–17 (hospitalisation cases) and 2008–09 to 2017–18 (deaths)

For more detailed data, see Data tables C1–4 and E1–4.

How do rates vary by age and sex?

Accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation rates were similar for males and females, but male deaths were twice the rate of female deaths. Age patterns were also markedly different between hospitalisation cases and deaths (Figure 2).

In 2017–18:

• 54% of injury hospitalisations due to accidental poisoning were for males (5,805 cases) and 46% were for females (4,997 cases)
• 70% of deaths due to accidental poisoning were for males (964 deaths) and 30% were for females (405 deaths)
• the age-standardised rate of hospitalised injury due to accidental poisoning for males was 47 cases per 100,000 males, compared with 39 per 100,000 females
• the age-standardised rate of poisoning deaths for males was 7.9 per 100,000 males, compared with 3.1 per 100,000 females
• people aged 45–64 had the highest rates of accidental poisoning deaths, compared with other life-stage age groups (9.4 per 100,000 population)
•  the 0–4 age group had the highest rates of hospitalisation for accidental poisoning, compared with other life-stage age groups (93 per 100,000 population). People aged 80 and over contributed considerably to the 65-and-over hospitalisation rate (Data table A2).

Figure 2: Accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases and deaths, by age group and sex, 2017–18

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

How severe are hospitalised injuries?

Three measures that may indicate the severity of a hospitalised injury are length of stay, percentage of cases with time in an intensive care unit (ICU), and percentage of cases involving continuous ventilator support.

The average duration of a hospital stay for injuries due to accidental poisoning was shorter than the average for all injury hospitalisations, but the percentages of cases that included either time in an ICU or on continuous ventilator support were higher than for all hospitalised injuries (Table 3).

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.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

In 2017–18, among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

• there were over 800 hospitalisations and 87 deaths due to accidental poisoning (Tables 4 and 5)
• males, compared with females, were 1.3 times as likely to be hospitalised and 1.7 times as likely to die due to accidental poisoning
• hospitalisation rates were highest among those aged 0–4 and death rates were highest among those aged 25–44, compared with other life-stage age groups (Figure 3).

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population.

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.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

In 2017–18, Indigenous Australians, compared with non-Indigenous Australians, after adjusting for differences in population age structure, were:

• 2.7 times as likely to be hospitalised due to accidental poisoning (Table 6)
• 2.7 times as likely to die because of accidental poisoning (Table 7 and Figure 3).

Notes:

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. Non-Indigenous 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’ includes 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.

The age-specific rate of accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases was highest among the 0–4 life-stage age group for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 3). Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 3: Accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases by Indigenous status, by age group and sex, 2017–18

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

Remoteness

In 2017–18, people living in Remote areas had the highest rate of hospitalisation by accidental poisoning and people living in Major Cities had the lowest rate. People living in 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 8).

People living in Inner regional areas had the highest rate of death by accidental poisoning and people living in Major cities were least likely to die due to poisoning. People living in Inner regional areas were 1.3 times as likely to die due to poisoning as those living in Major cities (Table 9).

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 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.

The highest age-specific rate of accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases was among the 0–4 life-stage age group living in Remote areas of Australia. (Figure 4).

Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 4: Accidental poisoning injury hospitalisation cases by remoteness, by age group and sex, 2017–18

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

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

More information

Technical notes—read about how the data were calculated.

Data tables—download full data tables.

Glossary