Assault by sharp object (page 1 of 4)

Knife crime is perceived to be a common and increasing problem in Scotland. One way of measuring the impact of knife crime is to look at the number of deaths and emergency hospital admissions due to injury caused by an assault by a knife or other sharp object. Injuries of this nature are thought of as "unintentional injuries" on the part of the victim.

There were 46 deaths and 1,333 hospital admissions in 2008 as a result of an assault by a sharp object. These account for approximately 2% of all hospital admissions and 3.5% of deaths due to unintentional injury. Assaults by a sharp object are also responsible for around 57% of all deaths as a result of assault and 25% of emergency hospital admissions due to assault.

Table 17 and Figure 10 shows how these figures have varied since 1998. The two measures have follow a broadly similar trend.

 ^{Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes.}