Table 1.

Numbers of suicides, undetermined deaths, and deaths resulting from accidental poisoning attributable to paracetamol and salicylates among people aged 12 years and over in England and Wales before and after the change in law on packaging^*

Drug	No (%) of deaths			% change in incidence‡ (95% CI)	P value	% change in proportional incidence‡ (95% CI)	P value
	Penultimate 12 months before change (n=2255)	12 months before change (n=2234)	12 months after change (n=2086)†
Paracetamol:
Alone	203 (9.0)	185 (8.3)	147 (7.0)	−21 (−34 to −5)	0.01	−18 (−33 to −1)	0.04
With other drugs	59 (2.6)	56 (2.5)	56 (2.7)	2 (−26 to 39)	0.9	5 (−24 to 44)	0.8
Salicylates:
Alone	35 (1.6)	29 (1.3)	16 (0.8)	−48 (−70 to −11)	0.02	−46 (−69 to −7)	0.03
With other drugs	4 (0.2)	8 (0.4)	3 (0.1)	−48 (−85 to 81)	0.3	−46 (−85 to 91)	0.3
Paracetamol and salicylates	11 (0.5)	5 (0.2)	9 (0.4)	18 (−47 to 163)	0.7	21 (−47 to 174)	0.6

^*16 September 1998. 

^†These numbers were increased by 4.5% in the analyses. (See methods section for explanation.) 

^‡Comparison of 12 months after the change with the average of the two years before.