Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, BH12 5BB, UK.
School of Health Sciences, College of Education, Health and Human Development, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
BMC Public Health. 2021 Sep 27;21(1):1760. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11827-0.
Death by drowning is a leading cause of accidental death in the United Kingdom (UK) and worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that effective documentation of drowning is required to describe drowning frequency and to underpin effective drowning prevention intervention, thus improving the quality of data describing drowning frequency represents a key initiative. The water incident database (WAID) has been used to document UK fatal and non-fatal water-based incidents since 2009. WAID has not undergone a systematic evaluation of its data or data collection procedures to establish if the database meets the WHO requirements. The present study investigated the characteristics of UK fatal drowning incidents and audited current WAID data capture procedures.
Data for the fatal drowning cases recorded between 2012 and 2019 were reviewed. Descriptive data were generated 1) to describe fatal drownings in the UK's WAID in this period; 2) a sub-set of drownings were audited i) for completeness of data entry and, based on source documents, ii) for quality of data entry; 3) these processes were used to make recommendations for onward revisions to WAID.
A total of 5051 fatalities were recorded between 2012 and 2019. Drowning was most frequent amongst males aged 35 to 60 years (n = 1346), whilst suspected accidents and suicides accounted for 44 and 35% of fatalities. Suicide by drowning was at a peak in the most recent year of data analysed (i.e., 2019; 279 cases) highlighting an urgent need for targeted intervention. Audit part 2i) indicated that 16% of all fields were incomplete, thus indicating potential redundancy, duplication, or the need for onward review. Audit part 2ii) indicated high levels of agreement (80 ± 12%) between audited cases and the 'true' WAID entries.
This study confirms WAID as a rigorous, transparent and effective means of documenting UK drownings thereby meeting WHO requirements for data quality; yet future improvements are recommended. Such findings allow researchers and policy makers to use WAID to further investigate UK drowning with a view to improving public safety measures and drowning prevention interventions. Observations alongside several expert recommendations have informed a revised version of WAID.
溺水是英国（UK）和全球意外死亡的主要原因之一。世界卫生组织（WHO）指出，需要对溺水事件进行有效记录，以描述溺水频率，并为有效的溺水预防干预措施提供依据，因此提高描述溺水频率数据的质量是一项关键举措。自 2009 年以来，水上事故数据库（WAID）一直用于记录英国致命和非致命水上事故。WAID 尚未对其数据或数据收集程序进行系统评估，以确定该数据库是否符合世卫组织的要求。本研究调查了英国致命溺水事件的特征，并审核了当前 WAID 数据采集程序。
对 2012 年至 2019 年期间记录的致命溺水事件数据进行了审查。生成描述性数据 1）描述这段时间英国 WAID 中的致命溺水事件；2）对溺水事件进行子集审核，以审核数据录入的完整性，并根据源文件审核数据录入的质量；3）这些过程用于为 WAID 的后续修订提出建议。
2012 年至 2019 年期间共记录了 5051 例死亡。溺水事件在 35 至 60 岁的男性中最为常见（n=1346），而可疑事故和自杀分别占死亡人数的 44%和 35%。自杀性溺水在分析的最近一年达到高峰（即 2019 年，有 279 例），这突显了有必要进行有针对性的干预。审核第 2 部分 i）表明，所有字段中有 16%不完整，因此表明可能存在冗余、重复或需要进一步审查。审核第 2 部分 ii）表明，审核案例与“真实”WAID 条目之间的一致性很高（80±12%）。
本研究证实 WAID 是记录英国溺水事件的严格、透明和有效的手段，符合世卫组织对数据质量的要求；但仍建议进一步改进。这些发现使研究人员和政策制定者能够使用 WAID 进一步调查英国溺水事件，以期改善公共安全措施和溺水预防干预措施。观察结果和几项专家建议共同为 WAID 的修订版本提供了信息。
