Contribution of Drugs to Drowning in Scotland from 1996 to 2020

Objective: Psychoactive substance 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 drownings in the United Kingdom (UK). This Scottish case-study aimed to fill this knowledge gap. Methods: Anonymised data for individual drug-poisoning-related drowning registered from 1996 to 2020 were provided by the National Records of Scotland. Statistical analyses were performed for socio-demographics, ICD coding, cause of death, and substances implicated. Results: It has been reported that death registrations increased from 7 in 2017 to over 20 during 2019-20. These deaths (n=160) accounted for