NCT06310499

Primary or Secondary Drowning

Primary or Secondary Fatal Drowning? A Registry-based Study Analysing Autopsy Reports From Patients Registered in the Danish Prehospital Drowning Data

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 700 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Prehospital Center, Region Zealand · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

According to WHO's rules, any death certificate must state the underlying cause of death and contributory causes of death may also be stated. Differentiating between primary and secondary drowning is difficult, as information preceding the drowning incident is rarely available. Yet, knowing the most frequent causes of secondary drowning may provide useful information to healthcare professionals working in prehospital Emergency Medical Services, as this may affect prehospital treatment.

Detailed description

The annual death statistics are based solely on the underlying cause of death, that is the disease or condition which started the process that led to death. The conditions that directly caused the death are also to be stated by the physician on the death certificate and may be included in the statistics. In research projects, data on those contributory causes of death may be drawn from the register. It is now the medical doctor who has verified the death and issued the death certificate indicating the underlying and contributory causes of death, who also classifies these causes in accordance with ICD-10 and fills in the coded data on the electronic death certificate. The Danish Register of Causes of Death is, thus, updated without central validation of the classification and relies entirely on the coding done by individual physicians. This study aims to characterise fatal drowning incidents as primary or secondary drownings and report the frequencies of secondary drowning causes.

Conditions

• Drowning
• Drowning; Anoxia
• Drowning, Near
• Drowning in Swimming Pool
• Drowning; Asphyxia
• Drowning/Diving/SCUBA Accident
• Drowning or Immersion of Unknown Intent
• Drowning and Submersion, Undetermined Intent
• Drowning and Submersion While in Bath-Tub
• Drowning and Submersion While in Natural Water
• Drowning and Submersion Due to Sailboat Sinking
• Drowning and Submersion Due to Fall Off Ship
• Drowning and Submersion While in Swimming-Pool

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Drowning	Drowning is defined as the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion or immersion in liquid.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-01-01
• Primary completion: 2025-12-31
• Completion: 2026-12-31
• First posted: 2024-03-15
• Last updated: 2025-08-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Denmark