This report, recently published by the Canadian Institute for Health Informationalso presents the ten main reasons for these visits.

See also – Closed Emergencies: Drive at least an hour to receive care on the North Shore

This text is a translation of a CTV News article.

For the fourth year in a row, “abdominal and pelvic pain” is the main reason for emergency department consultations.

Of visits analyzed in 2023-24, more than 444,000 people cited abdominal or pelvic pain as the reason for their visit, which is 93,000 more visits than the second most commonly cited reason: neck and chest pain.

The top reasons for emergency room visits in 2023-24

Duration of stay: 90% of visits were resolved within the specified number of hours

• 1. Abdominal and pelvic pain – 10.3 hours
• 2. Neck and chest pain – 8.9 hours
• 3. Respiratory tract infections – 5.9 hours
• 4. Dorsalgia (back pain) – 8.6 hours
• 5. Urinary system disorders – 12.3 hours
• 6. Other medical care – 4.1 hours
• 7. Acute pharyngitis – 5.5 hours
• 8. Open wound on wrist and/or hand – 5.6 hours
• 9. Cellulite – 9.7 hours
• 10. Open head wound – 7.3 hours

Other reasons for visiting the emergency room in the past year include respiratory infections, back pain, urinary system disorders, throat swelling (pharyngitis), cellulitis (skin infection), and open wounds.

The data also reports the duration of these visits, measured by the number of hours required to resolve 90% of cases.

Urinary system disorders are the problems that result in the longest visits (12.3 hours). Next comes abdominal and pelvic pain at 10.3 hours, then cellulite.

The last four years

For the past four years, abdominal and pelvic pain remained at the top of the list, as did neck and chest pain, which continued to rank second.

Back pain was the third most commonly reported problem in 2020-21 and 2021-22, but in the last two years acute respiratory infections have risen to third place.