Severe emergency department visits* and admissions to hospital, by cannabis-related and non–cannabis-related visit, 2003 and 2017
| Visit type | 2003† | 2017† | Increase 2003–2017§ (95% CI) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of severe visits | Severe visits, % (95% CI) | Rate ratio‡ (95% CI) | No. of severe visits | Severe visits, % (95% CI) | Rate ratio‡ (95% CI) | ||
| Visits coded resuscitation, emergent or urgent¶ | |||||||
| Cannabis related | 652 | 65.7 (62.8–68.7) | 2.1 (2.0–2.2) | 4606 | 88.2 (87.3–89.0) | 1.52 (1.50–1.53) | 1.3 (1.3–1.4) |
| Non–cannabis related | 279 253 | 31.0 (30.9–31.1) | 583 799 | 58.1 (58.0–58.2) | 1.9 (1.9–1.9) | ||
| Visit type | 2003 | 2017 | Increase 2003–2017§ (95% CI) | ||||
| No. of transfers | Transfers, % (95% CI) | Rate ratio‡ (95% CI) | No. of transfers | Transfers, % (95% CI) | Rate ratio‡ (95% CI) | ||
| ED visits with hospital admission | |||||||
| Cannabis related | 89 | 9.0 (7.2–10.8) | 1.8 (1.5–2.2) | 995 | 19.0 (18.0–20.1) | 3.3 (3.1–3.5) | 2.1 (1.7–2.6) |
| Non–cannabis related | 45 172 | 5.0 (5.0–5.1) | 58 022 | 5.8 (5.7–5.8) | 1.2 (1.1–1.2) | ||
Note: CI = confidence interval, ED = emergency department.
↵* A severe Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) score includes visits coded as urgent, emergent or resuscitation.
↵† 992 cannabis-related and 900 256 non–cannabis-related emergency department visits in 2003; 5224 cannabis-related and 1 004 909 non–cannabis-related emergency department visits in 2017.
↵‡ Rate ratio = (% of cannabis-related visits)/(% of non–cannabis-related visits).
↵§ Increase 2003–2017 = (% of visits in 2017)/(% of visits in 2003).
↵¶ Severe visits, which was the CTAS score collapsed to visits coded “resuscitation, emergent or urgent,” had less than 1% missing data.