Other unintentional causes and undetermined intent

Other unintentional causes covers unintentional injury hospitalisations and deaths not principally caused by any of the main causes described in the other articles, or where there may not have been enough information to specify the cause. In ICD10-AM coding for injury hospitalisations these are referred to as Accidental exposure to other and unspecified factors (X58-X59). In 2023–24 these accounted for 65,123 injury hospitalisations, a crude rate of 241.8 injury hospitalisations per 100,000 population. Other unintentional causes are the fourth ranked cause of injury hospitalisations in 2023–24 and the sixth ranked cause of injury deaths 2022–23. They caused 363 (1.4 per 100,000) injury deaths in 2022–23.

External causes of undetermined intent include ICD-10-AM codes Y10-Y34, where the cause of injury is known but it is unclear whether the act was an accident or intentional. They are the eleventh ranked cause of injury hospitalisations in 2023–24 and the eighth ranked cause of injury deaths 2022–23. They caused 4,033 (15.0 per 100,000 population) injury hospitalisations in 2023–24 and 242 (0.9 per 100,000 population) injury deaths in 2022–23.

Cases of injury where the external cause was not reported are the sixteenth ranked cause of injury hospitalisations in 2023–24. There were 130 injury hospitalisations with no reported external cause of injury in 2023–24.

All together, these injuries resulted in around:

Causes of injuries of undetermined intent

Further external causes of injuries are described only for injury hospitalisations due to External causes of undetermined intent since meaningful details cannot be described for injuries where external causes are Not reported or recorded as Other unintentional causes. Where external causes were specified, poisoning and blunt or sharp objects accounted for the highest numbers and rates of injury hospitalisations (Figure 1). Articles on accidental poisoning, assault and contact with objects detail these sorts of injuries further for injuries where intent is known.

Figure 1: Number and crude rates (per 100,000) of injury hospitalisations of undetermined intent by external cause of injury, Australia, 2023–24

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

For deaths, poisons, drowning or suffocation, and falls were among the top 3 causes in 2022–23. Rates are not displayed for deaths due to small counts, all rates were under 1 per 100,000 persons (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Number of injury deaths of undetermined intent by external cause of injury, Australia, 2022–23

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

Trends over time

Figure 3: Age standardised rates of injury hospitalisations, Australia, over the past decade

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

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

The rate of injury hospitalisations where intent is undetermined has decreased over the past decade, while that for Other unintentional causes has increased (Figure 3). Injuries where cause was Not reported have been recorded less frequently over time as the capture of external cause coding in hospital data improves (see technical notes for details). For causes of Undetermined intent related to poisoning and contact with objects (Figure 4), rates over time have generally decreased or remained stable, apart from contact with blunt objects which has increased since 2020–21.

Figure 4: Crude rates of injury hospitalisations by type of cause of undetermined intent, Australia, over the past decade

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population. 

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

Severity

The average number of days in hospital for injuries with Undetermined intent was lower than the average for all hospitalised injuries in 2023–24, as was the rate of in-hospital deaths. On the other hand, the percentages of cases that included time in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and cases that involved Continuous Ventilatory Support (CVS) were much higher (Table 1). This reflects the large contribution of poisoning cases to injuries with undetermined intent, as a similar pattern was observed for cases of accidental poisoning, with a higher proportion of cases requiring ICU and/or CVS.

Injuries caused by Other unintentional causes were overall less severe than the average of all injuries (Table 1).

Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from one hospital to another or transfers from one 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 supplementary data tables.

Age and sex

Figure 5: Crude rates of injury hospitalisations, Australia, 2023–24

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population. 

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

Rates of injury hospitalisations caused by Other unintentional causes or with Undetermined intent were distributed unevenly by age and sex (Figure 5). In general, cases were most likely to be of Undetermined intent in adolescents, younger adults and the elderly. Other unintentional cause related injury hospitalisations among males peaked in adolescence with a second peak above the age of 75 years, while in females the highest rates were observed in those aged 85+. Deaths are not described further due to small counts. 

Males hospitalised due to injuries of Undetermined intent were most likely to have injuries caused by contact with blunt objects, with the highest rate of these hospitalisations being among 15–24-year-olds at 5.3 per 100,000 persons. For females, the highest crude rate was 2.6 injury hospitalisations per 100,000 population related to Poisoning by and exposure to antiepileptic, sedative-hypnotic, antiparkinsonism and psychotropic drugs (see supplementary data tables). 

Data details

• Technical notes: how the data were calculated
• Data tables: download the full tables
• Glossary
  
  

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