I have a large national dataset and plan to analyse socioeconomic
differences in risk of having appendicitis. Persons born after 1949 to
end of 1990 and alive at 1/1/1991 (n=4.500.000) are included in the
dataset. The dataset contain the date when a person was operated for
appendicitis between 1/1/1991 and 31/12/2003 and date of deaths.
Previous collaborators have used SPSS and made Coxregression with time
from 1/1/1991 to the appendicitisdiagnosis or censoring as
analysistime, and have entered age at operation as covariates to
control for the differnces in age.
I am not content with the results and think that there may be
uncontrolled confounding from age, as there is probably violation of
proportional hazard due to the difference in age.
I wonder if a stratified analysis would be better (with appropriate
age-intervals as strata) or if I can use age as analysistime with the
persons coming under observation at different ages.
Is this a correct form to make stset:
stset dateexit [fweight = count], failure(app) enter(time dateenter)
exit(time dateexit) origin(time datebirth) scale(365.25)
with dateenter=1/1/1991
failure event: app != 0 & app < .
obs. time interval: (origin, dateexit]
enter on or after: time dateenter
exit on or before: time dateexit
t for analysis: (time-origin)/365.25
origin: time datebirth
weight: [fweight=count]
I would appreciate your comments.
Roland Andersson, MD PhD
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