For more detail, see Data tables A1–3 and D1–3.
There are many ways that the severity, or seriousness, of an injury can be assessed. Some of the ways to measure the severity of hospitalised injuries are:
- number of days in hospital
- time in an intensive care unit (ICU)
- time on a ventilator
- in-hospital deaths.
The average number of days in hospital and the rate of in-hospital deaths were both lower than the average for all injuries, while the percentage of cases that included time in the ICU, the percentage that involved continuous ventilatory support were among the highest of all injury causes (Table 3).
Table 3: Severity of hospitalised injuries due to drowning and submersion, 2021–22
|
Drowning and submersion
|
All injuries
|
Average number of days in hospital
|
2.7
|
4.7
|
% of cases with time in an ICU
|
7.6
|
2.0
|
% of cases involving continuous ventilatory support
|
6.8
|
1.1
|
In-hospital deaths (per 1,000 cases)
|
0.0
|
5.9
|
Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes hospitalisations 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 and A13.
Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:
- there were 29 hospitalisations in 2021–22 (Table 4)
- and 10 deaths in 2020–21
caused by drowning and submersion.
Table 4: Number and of drowning and submersion hospitalisations by sex, Indigenous Australians, 2021–22
|
Males
|
Females
|
Persons
|
Hospitalisations
|
13
|
16
|
29
|
Source: AIHW National Hospital Mortality Database.
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
In 2021–22, Indigenous Australians, compared with non-Indigenous Australians , after adjusting for differences in population age structure, were 1.2 times as likely to be hospitalised due to a drowning and submersion injury. Readers are advised to use these data with caution due to small numbers.
Deaths data are not compared here because of the small numbers but are available in the data tables.
For more detail, see Data tables A4–A6 and D4–D8.