. 2025 May 16;25:81. doi: 10.1186/s12873-025-01237-5

Table 1.

Chief complaints and their bivariate associations with high-acuity outcomes among 10–17-year-old adolescents utilizing pediatric emergency services in Taiwan, by sex

Chief Complaint	Total		High-Acuity Outcome^a
	Total		All			Male			Female
	n	Col %	n _HAO	Row %	P	n _HAO	Row %	P	n _HAO	Row %	P
Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases, and immunity disorders	37	0.2	26	70.3	*******	5	31.3		21	100	*******
Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs	2	0.01	1	50.0		0	0		1	100
Mental disorders	91	0.5	29	31.9	*******	13	28.3	*	16	35.6	*******
Diseases of the nervous system	576	3.4	155	26.9	*******	92	30.3	*******	63	23.2	*******
Eye diseases	485	2.9	12	2.5	*******	5	2.0	*******	7	3.1	*******
Ear diseases	225	1.3	10	4.4	*******	6	4.8	*******	4	4.0	*******
Diseases of the circulatory system	68	0.4	12	17.7		5	18.5		7	17.1
Diseases of the respiratory system	2,624	15.5	286	10.9	*******	181	11.4	*******	105	10.1	*******
Diseases of the digestive system	1,365	8.1	278	20.4	*******	133	17.7	**	145	23.7	*******
Diseases of the genitourinary system	174	1.0	30	17.2		16	18.4		14	16.1
Complications of pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium^b	7	0.1^b	3	42.9^b		-	-	-	3	42.9
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	1,144	6.8	105	9.2	*******	43	6.4	*******	62	13.1
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	325	1.9	42	13.0		19	11.2		23	14.7
Fever	4,913	29.1	718	14.6		382	13.8		336	15.6
Chest pain	293	1.7	51	17.4		41	20.9	**	10	10.3
Headache	723	4.3	59	8.2	*******	32	8.4	*******	27	7.9	*******
Abdominal pain	3,356	19.8	624	18.9	*******	324	19.1	*******	300	18.1	*******
Hyperventilation syndrome	40	0.2	3	7.5		0	0		3	10.0
Poisoning	11	0.1	8	72.7	*******	6	66.7	*******	2	100	*
Others that are hard to classify	451	2.7	56	12.4		35	13.4		21	11.1

^a The four high-acuity outcomes include: (1) intensive care unit (ICU) admission or in-ED death; (2) inpatient ward admission; (3) return to the ED within 72 h for the same presenting complaint; and (4) ED length of stay exceeding 6 h. Col % represents the percentage of ED visits attributed to each chief complaint, calculated as (n/Total ED visits) × 100. It reflects the proportion of ED visits for a specific chief complaint relative to all ED visits included in the study, providing an estimate of the prevalence of that complaint among the total ED visits. n_HAO represents the number of ED visits with the chief complaint listed in that row that resulted in any high-acuity outcome. Row % indicates the percentage of ED visits with that chief complaint that resulted in any high-acuity outcome, calculated as (n_HAO/n) x 100. The “Total” column’s n represents the total number of ED visits for that chief complaint and is the denominator for the “All” Row %. The n values for “Male” and “Female” are not shown but can be calculated using their respective Row % values. For each row: n (Total) = n (Male) + n (Female); n_HAO (All) = n_HAO (Male) + n_HAO (Female)

^b Only for female adolescents

*P < 0.05, **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001