Contribution of drugs to drownings in Scotland, 1996-2020

© Bentham Science Publishers. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.2174/1570159X20666220830110758Objective Psychoactive substances use (including alcohol) can affect risk perception, leading to accidents and deaths. There is little detailed or up-to-date information on the role of drugs in United Kingdom (UK) drownings. This Scottish case-study aimed to fill this knowledge-gap. Methods Anonymised data for individual drug-poisoning related drownings registered in 1996-2020 were provided by the National Records of Scotland. Statistical analyses were undertaken for socio-demographics, ICD coding, cause of death, substances implicated. Results Death registrations rose from 7 in 2017 to over 20 in 2019-20. These deaths (n=160) accounted for