42 - Suicide/undetermined by drowning

Summary

This category includes deaths due to drowning that a coroner has determined as suicides, and those where the individual’s intent remains undetermined, although many such cases are likely to be unproven suicide.

See also Map 27 Accidental drowning.

The highest SMRs for males and females are found in the north west of Scotland and in Glasgow, with a further cluster in London. Females also have high rates in Scotland but elsewhere the pattern is less evident. The lowest rates are most concentrated in a ring around outer London, mostly in the Home Counties.

This method of suicide accounts for less than one tenth (7.8%) of all suicides. However, it is a more common form of suicide for older people, particularly women, than for younger people. This is reflected in the mean age for this form of suicide – it has the highest mean age of all the categories of suicide.

Some of these deaths of older people may possibly be explained by cardiac arrest and subsequent drowning in the bath (which may be difficult to ascertain from a post-mortem) rather than due to deliberate suicide. The role of alcohol in these drowning deaths is unclear as death certificates do not contain sufficient data to explore this.

This method of suicide is not classed as amenable to specific prevention activities.

Of the specified suicide/undetermined causes, drowning has the highest proportion of undetermined deaths, with 63% being undetermined.

Novelist Virginia Woolf died from this cause.