Epidemiological Analysis of Drowning Deaths Among Different Groups in Jordan - a Retrospective Study (2015-2019)

Abstract

Background: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), drowning is globally considered as one of the leading causes of injury related deaths. Defined as the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion in a liquid medium. Drowning is a public health concern in Jordan. This study aimed to investigate drowning incident data from the Forensic Medicine Teaching Centre in the North of Jordan for the purpose of defining high risk groups and circumstances around drowning fatalities which suffered an attention deficit. Objective: The study aims to describe the rate of fatal drowning in North of Jordan and to properly understand the risk factors associated with it. Methods: The present study is retrospective, based on investigating 2808 autopsy reports and selecting only 85 drowning related death reports conducted through a 5 year period (2015-2019) in the Forensic Medicine Teaching Centre which serves Northern Jordan including Irbid, Jarash, Ajloun, and Al-Mafraq. The statistical analysis of fatal drowning cases included the following risk variables: Age, gender, month, year, nationality, address, alcohol and drug consumption. Results: 15 variables were consistent and analyzed across the database of this study. The high risk groups and patterns were identified and the majority of fatal drowning cases were related to males (80.4%). Age group from (2 to 27 years of age were included in the high-risk groups with (88.2%) of all cases. Specifically, the age 2 had the highest occurring frequency. While (17.6%) of drowning fatalities occurred in August. Alcohol and drugs had no significant impact on increasing drowning rates. The dominant manner of death among all cases was accidental (95.3%). Fatal drowning rates were decreasing throughout the years of (2015-2019). Conclusion: Defining drowning high risk groups and its epidemiology helps to overcome this preventable cause of death. The current study highlights the necessity for the need of further interventions to be actively fixed into policies and educational programs and emphasize safety precautions during water activities and to improve the dataset collection for better planning of prevention strategies.

A South African Epidemiological Study of Fatal Drownings: 2016 – 2021

“…Similarly, the low drowning incidence in 2020 could be attributed to the stringent COVID-19 restrictions, which included the ban on alcohol, no access to beaches and public swimming facilities and limitations to gatherings. This suggest that alcohol does play a role in fatal drowning, and this is confirmed by the available literature [15].…”

“…The research findings highlight that the timing of fatal drownings is most likely to occur in January and February; these months are reported as the warmer months in South Africa. Research has indicated that the drowning incidence was higher in warmer months due to the increase in water activities [15]. The day of the week reported as the day when fatal drownings frequently occurred are on Sundays, which is a recreational day when people can go dams, beaches, swimming pools etc.…”

“…Several studies indicate that fatal drownings are more prevalent in males than females [6,13,15]. Numerous reasons have been cited in connection with why males are more likely to drown; these include increased exposure to water, males being more confident about their swimming ability than females, cultural bias, and males were more likely to take risks [6,16].…”

A South African Epidemiological Study of Fatal Drownings: 2016–2021

“…Similarly, the low drowning incidence in 2020 could be attributed to the stringent COVID-19 restrictions, which included a ban on alcohol, restricted access to beaches and public swimming facilities, and limitations on gatherings. This suggests that alcohol does play a role in fatal drowning, and this is confirmed by the available literature [ 15 ].…”

“…Several studies indicate that fatal drownings are more prevalent in males than females [ 6 , 13 , 15 ]. Numerous reasons have been cited in connection with why males are more likely to drown; these include increased exposure to water, males being more confident about their swimming ability than females, cultural bias, and males being more likely to take risks [ 6 , 16 ].…”