Quantifying the extent of visit irregularity in longitudinal data

Lokku Armend (), Birken Catherine S, Maguire Jonathon L and Pullenayegum Eleanor M
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Lokku Armend: Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
Birken Catherine S: Division of Pediatric Medicine and the Pediatric Outcomes Research Team (PORT), Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
Maguire Jonathon L: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Pullenayegum Eleanor M: Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

The International Journal of Biostatistics, 2022, vol. 18, issue 2, 487-520

Abstract: The timings of visits in observational longitudinal data may depend on the study outcome, and this can result in bias if ignored. Assessing the extent of visit irregularity is important because it can help determine whether visits can be treated as repeated measures or as irregular data. We propose plotting the mean proportions of individuals with 0 visits per bin against the mean proportions of individuals with >1 visit per bin as bin width is varied and using the area under the curve (AUC) to assess the extent of irregularity. The AUC is a single score which can be used to quantify the extent of irregularity and assess how closely visits resemble repeated measures. Simulation results confirm that the AUC increases with increasing irregularity while being invariant to sample size and the number of scheduled measurement occasions. A demonstration of the AUC was performed on the TARGet Kids! study which enrolls healthy children aged 0–5 years with the aim of investigating the relationship between early life exposures and later health problems. The quality of statistical analyses can be improved by using the AUC as a guide to select the appropriate analytic outcome approach and minimize the potential for biased results.

Keywords: irregular visits; longitudinal data; summary measures; visit intensity; visit process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1515/ijb-2020-0144

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