The criterion for a new spell would perhaps be better
as
(drug != drug[_n-1]) | (since > 45)
Nick
[email protected]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of n j cox
> Sent: 16 October 2007 20:52
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: Problem with group operation and looping
>
>
> I see no (need for) looping here. This is, I believe,
> a standard spell problem. Some years ago Richard Goldstein
> and I wrote a -spell- program, which is still on SSC
> (Stata 6 required). Then I wired in an assumption that
> your data are -tsset- data and wrote -tsspell-, which is
> also still on SSC (Stata 7 required). Please note that
> the help file for -tsspell- is stuffed with spells for
> spells.
>
> More recently I wrote the ideas up in a column in
> Stata Journal 7(2) 2007: an abstract is at
> <http://www.stata-press.com/journals/sjabstracts/dm0029.pdf>
> That is a rather detailed, and perhaps tedious, paper spelling
> out the exact logic I have found useful for spell problems.
>
> That column doesn't mention -spell- or -tsspell-. It
> seemed more fruitful to explain the underlying Stata
> ideas. So too, from now on, in this case.
>
> Let's start with Gao Liu's second question, assuming that
> the dataset is as desired. A spell for any person is, I take it,
> that they stayed on the same drug with no gap more than 45 days.
> Thus we need to get the time since previous prescription:
>
> bysort id (date) : gen since = date - date[_n-1]
>
> This will be missing for the first -date- for any -id-
> and missing (.) counts as greater than 45 (days), which is fine. Thus
> a spell starts whenever
>
> (drug != drug[_n-1]) & (since > 45)
>
> That is a true or false statement which evaluates
> to 1 if true or 0 if false. The parentheses and generous
> spacing aren't needed, but they may be helpful. Thus we can
> tag spells 1, 2, 3, ... for each -id- by
>
> by id: gen spell = sum( (drug != drug[_n-1]) & (since > 45) )
>
> Some people would want me to point out that the two lines
> here could be one:
>
> bysort id (date) : gen spell =
> sum( (drug != drug[_n-1]) & ( (date - date[_n-1]) > 45))
>
> but that variable -since- might turn out to be interesting or useful
> in its own right.
>
> Once you have defined spells, then the start of each spell is
> naturally just the first -date- in each:
>
> bysort id spell (date) : gen start = date[1]
>
> and other calculations call for similar applications of -by:-.
> The Speaking Stata column is full of such stuff, with endless
> minor variations on the same theme.
>
> The first question seems to call for various -keep- or -drop-
> statements.
>
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
>
> Gao Liu
>
> I think I am still quite confused with group operations using var[i]
> and looping, so I am struggling with the following problem. I would
> really appreciate if somebody can give me a hand.
>
> I have a dataset containing following variables: ID, day_of_service,
> drug_name, in which day_of service is the first day when the ID is
> treated with the drug. The dataset contains data from 2003 to 2006.
> Each ID may be treated for many times, and each time may be treated
> with a different drug. In other word, they might switch from one drug
> to another. But they would not switch back to a previously used drug.
>
> I need to prepare two things for further analysis using the dataset.
> First, I want to keep the observations with an entry. All
> IDs with the first day_of service starting after 2004 will be kept.
> For IDs with services before 2004, there are two situations: (the
> first service day in 2004)- (the last service day in 2003)>45 or <45.
> If <45, all observations of the ID would be dropped. If ID with >45,
> observations after 2004 will be kept, but 2003 observations for the
> same ID will be dropped.
>
> Second, I need to figure out that for each drug (6 drugs totally), how
> long an ID stuck with the drug before he/her switched to another drug
> or exit. It is considered an exit if there is no new treatment 45 days
> after the last treatment.
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