From: A scoping review of female drowning: an underexplored issue in five high-income countries
Author | Country | Study aim | Study Design/Methodology | Study sample | Results | Limitations | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
El Sibai et al. (2018) [4] | United States | To describe the characteristics and predictors of poor outcome among ED presentations for drowning | Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study Data Collection: NEDS dataset, 2013 | Females n = 4283/12529 (34.2%) | Multivariate analysis results report significant positive predictor of poor outcomes among males. Over half of patients were discharged home from ED. | Level IV-Low level evidence GRADE-Very low | NEDS data represents 20% of US hospital based ED’s. Errors reported in injury coding for submersion therefore some drownings missed. |
Lee et al. (2006) [36] | United States | To describe the epidemiology and outcomes of serious paediatric submersion, and identify factors associated with increased mortality and morbidity. | Design: Retrospective case-series Data collection: Massachusetts electronic death database from Department of Public Health Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, and Massachusetts Hospital discharge Database from 1994 to 2000. Ages 0–19 years | Females n = 89/267 (33%) | Males were 2.52 times more likely to have a poor outcome than females (mortality and morbidity) | Level IV-Low level evidence GRADE-Very low | Limitations in data collected from databases such as quality, duplicates or missed cases. Data only contained patients admitted to hospital wards as ED state-wide data was not available. |
Quan et al. (2014) [37] | United States, United Kingdom, Australia | To assess the association between water temperature and duration of submersion in the outcome of drowning. | Design: Case-control study Data collection: Western Washington database, January 1974 to June 1996. Data collection was limited to unintentional drowning that occurred in open waters (lakes, rivers and oceans) | Females n = 161/1094 (15%) | Good outcome (survived with or without limited neurological deficit or injury): Females n = 69/276 (24.9%) Good outcome associated with age less than 15 years, female and immersion duration of less than 6 min in water greater than 16 degrees Celsius. | Level III-3-Low level evidence GRADE-Very low | Retrospective data collection limitations with hand searching, although authors believe high case ascertainment from this method. Water temperatures were estimated, as not routinely collected at the time of the drowning incident. |
Reynolds et al. (2017) [38] | United States | To estimate long-term mortality and identify prognostic factors in drowning victims. | Design: Cohort study Data collection: Western Washing Drowning Registry on non-fatal drowning incidents from January 1974 to July 1996. | Females n = 247/776 (31.8%) | Long-term mortality: univariate analysis for Male sex –non-significant (Cox proportional hazard modelling). | Level III-3-Low level evidence GRADE-Very low | Difficult to predict long-term survival from drowning event due to accuracy of coding data, although this association suggested. |
Reynolds et al. (2019) [39] | United States | To estimate long-term survival after cardiac arrest from drowning. | Design: Cohort Study Data collection: Western Washington Drowning Registry on non-fatal drowning incidents. January 1974 to July 1996. | Females n = 109/407 (26.8%) (Survived to hospital admission) | Long-term survival: Females n = 18/54 (33.3%) | Level III-3-Low level evidence GRADE-Very low | Missing data, only variables with less than 25% missing data were included in multivariate analysis. |