Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia: continuing the national story 2019

Purpose/description

The purpose of the NHMD is to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals.

Scope and coverage

The National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD) is a compilation of episode-level records from admitted patient morbidity data collection systems in Australian hospitals. It is a comprehensive dataset that has records for all episodes of admitted patient care from essentially all public and private hospitals in Australia.

A record is included for each separation, not for each patient, so patients who separated more than once in the year have more than one record in the NHMD.

For 2016–17, almost all public hospitals provided data for the NHMD. The exception was an early parenting centre in the Australian Capital Territory. The great majority of private hospitals also provided data, the exceptions being the private freestanding day hospital facilities in the Australian Capital Territory.

Information on diagnoses and external cause are recorded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM).

For 2016–17, almost all records included data on the area of usual residence in the form of a Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) (whether provided by the jurisdiction or mapped by the AIHW). Information on remoteness and Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage were based on the 2011 SA2 boundaries.

FDSV definitions

Family and domestic violence is determined by relationship to perpetrator. Where the perpetrator, who caused injuries being treated, was a spouse or domestic partner, parent, or other family member, it was classified as family and domestic violence for the purposes of this publication.

For more information, visit Admitted patient care 2016–17.