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These functions determine which items in a vector can be considered (the start of) a new episode, based on the argument episode_days. This can be used to determine clinical episodes for any epidemiological analysis. The get_episode() function returns the index number of the episode per group, while the is_new_episode() function returns values TRUE/FALSE to indicate whether an item in a vector is the start of a new episode.

Usage

get_episode(x, episode_days, ...)

is_new_episode(x, episode_days, ...)

Arguments

x

vector of dates (class Date or POSIXt), will be sorted internally to determine episodes

episode_days

required episode length in days, can also be less than a day or Inf, see Details

...

ignored, only in place to allow future extensions

Value

  • get_episode(): a double vector

  • is_new_episode(): a logical vector

Details

Dates are first sorted from old to new. The oldest date will mark the start of the first episode. After this date, the next date will be marked that is at least episode_days days later than the start of the first episode. From that second marked date on, the next date will be marked that is at least episode_days days later than the start of the second episode which will be the start of the third episode, and so on. Before the vector is being returned, the original order will be restored.

The first_isolate() function is a wrapper around the is_new_episode() function, but is more efficient for data sets containing microorganism codes or names and allows for different isolate selection methods.

The dplyr package is not required for these functions to work, but these functions do support variable grouping and work conveniently inside dplyr verbs such as filter(), mutate() and summarise().

See also

Examples

# `example_isolates` is a data set available in the AMR package.
# See ?example_isolates
df <- example_isolates[sample(seq_len(2000), size = 200), ]

get_episode(df$date, episode_days = 60) # indices
#>   [1] 18 63 33  7  6 44 11 62 32 15  4  7 35 59 25 42 38 20  2 49 36 21 14 59 32
#>  [26] 14 19  3 31 38 11 55 64 14 50 38 60  4  7 51 27 12  4 53  8 21 60  8  2 14
#>  [51]  6 31  9 58 27  1 63 23 10  7 23 61  4 56  9 60 19 56 44 48 14 23 33 28 54
#>  [76] 26 19 61  6 60 28 28 28 59  3 58 30  5 34 60 18 46 42 18  6 62 38 39 17  7
#> [101] 40 43  5 49 31 33 51 54 56 34 31 52  3 43 45 31 40 38  5 62  8  3 13 16 46
#> [126] 35 48 65 19 28 48 48 60 54 14 32 60 52 27  1 57 14 53 64 34 28 33 19  9 13
#> [151] 51 52  4  6 64 27 14 56 63 20 47  8 37 37 56 10 32 11 25  6 27 17 52 26 34
#> [176] 12 22 18 29 64 40 24 62 48 16 58 41 30 36 43 32 58 14 58 32 61 26 24  1 56
is_new_episode(df$date, episode_days = 60) # TRUE/FALSE
#>   [1] FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [13] FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#>  [25] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
#>  [37]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [49] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [61] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [73] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [85]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [97] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [109] FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
#> [121] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [133] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [145] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [157] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#> [169] FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
#> [181] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [193] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE

# filter on results from the third 60-day episode only, using base R
df[which(get_episode(df$date, 60) == 3), ]
#> # A tibble: 4 × 46
#>   date       patient   age gender ward     mo           PEN   OXA   FLC   AMX  
#>   <date>     <chr>   <dbl> <chr>  <chr>    <mo>         <rsi> <rsi> <rsi> <rsi>
#> 1 2002-07-23 F35553     51 M      ICU      B_STPHY_AURS R     NA    S     R    
#> 2 2002-06-06 24D393     20 F      Clinical B_ESCHR_COLI R     NA    NA    NA   
#> 3 2002-07-23 F35553     51 M      ICU      B_STPHY_AURS R     NA    S     R    
#> 4 2002-06-06 24D393     20 F      Clinical B_ESCHR_COLI R     NA    NA    NA   
#> # … with 36 more variables: AMC <rsi>, AMP <rsi>, TZP <rsi>, CZO <rsi>,
#> #   FEP <rsi>, CXM <rsi>, FOX <rsi>, CTX <rsi>, CAZ <rsi>, CRO <rsi>,
#> #   GEN <rsi>, TOB <rsi>, AMK <rsi>, KAN <rsi>, TMP <rsi>, SXT <rsi>,
#> #   NIT <rsi>, FOS <rsi>, LNZ <rsi>, CIP <rsi>, MFX <rsi>, VAN <rsi>,
#> #   TEC <rsi>, TCY <rsi>, TGC <rsi>, DOX <rsi>, ERY <rsi>, CLI <rsi>,
#> #   AZM <rsi>, IPM <rsi>, MEM <rsi>, MTR <rsi>, CHL <rsi>, COL <rsi>,
#> #   MUP <rsi>, RIF <rsi>

# the functions also work for less than a day, e.g. to include one per hour:
get_episode(c(
  Sys.time(),
  Sys.time() + 60 * 60
),
episode_days = 1 / 24
)
#> [1] 1 2

# \donttest{
if (require("dplyr")) {
  # is_new_episode() can also be used in dplyr verbs to determine patient
  # episodes based on any (combination of) grouping variables:
  df %>%
    mutate(condition = sample(
      x = c("A", "B", "C"),
      size = 200,
      replace = TRUE
    )) %>%
    group_by(condition) %>%
    mutate(new_episode = is_new_episode(date, 365)) %>%
    select(patient, date, condition, new_episode)
}
#> # A tibble: 200 × 4
#> # Groups:   condition [3]
#>    patient date       condition new_episode
#>    <chr>   <date>     <chr>     <lgl>      
#>  1 E67091  2006-01-25 C         FALSE      
#>  2 D80438  2017-06-28 A         FALSE      
#>  3 B26404  2010-01-04 A         FALSE      
#>  4 A73011  2003-08-13 A         FALSE      
#>  5 53F0B8  2003-06-25 B         FALSE      
#>  6 23C701  2012-07-27 B         FALSE      
#>  7 022060  2004-05-04 C         TRUE       
#>  8 976997  2017-03-02 A         FALSE      
#>  9 22B987  2009-10-19 C         FALSE      
#> 10 FB50D6  2005-04-24 C         FALSE      
#> # … with 190 more rows
if (require("dplyr")) {
  df %>%
    group_by(ward, patient) %>%
    transmute(date,
      patient,
      new_index = get_episode(date, 60),
      new_logical = is_new_episode(date, 60)
    )
}
#> # A tibble: 200 × 5
#> # Groups:   ward, patient [177]
#>    ward     date       patient new_index new_logical
#>    <chr>    <date>     <chr>       <dbl> <lgl>      
#>  1 Clinical 2006-01-25 E67091          1 TRUE       
#>  2 ICU      2017-06-28 D80438          1 TRUE       
#>  3 Clinical 2010-01-04 B26404          1 TRUE       
#>  4 Clinical 2003-08-13 A73011          1 TRUE       
#>  5 Clinical 2003-06-25 53F0B8          1 TRUE       
#>  6 Clinical 2012-07-27 23C701          1 TRUE       
#>  7 ICU      2004-05-04 022060          1 TRUE       
#>  8 Clinical 2017-03-02 976997          1 TRUE       
#>  9 Clinical 2009-10-19 22B987          1 TRUE       
#> 10 ICU      2005-04-24 FB50D6          1 TRUE       
#> # … with 190 more rows
if (require("dplyr")) {
  df %>%
    group_by(ward) %>%
    summarise(
      n_patients = n_distinct(patient),
      n_episodes_365 = sum(is_new_episode(date, episode_days = 365)),
      n_episodes_60 = sum(is_new_episode(date, episode_days = 60)),
      n_episodes_30 = sum(is_new_episode(date, episode_days = 30))
    )
}
#> # A tibble: 3 × 5
#>   ward       n_patients n_episodes_365 n_episodes_60 n_episodes_30
#>   <chr>           <int>          <int>         <int>         <int>
#> 1 Clinical          108             14            50            67
#> 2 ICU                55             13            36            42
#> 3 Outpatient         14              8            12            12
if (require("dplyr")) {

  # grouping on patients and microorganisms leads to the same
  # results as first_isolate() when using 'episode-based':
  x <- df %>%
    filter_first_isolate(
      include_unknown = TRUE,
      method = "episode-based"
    )

  y <- df %>%
    group_by(patient, mo) %>%
    filter(is_new_episode(date, 365)) %>%
    ungroup()

  identical(x, y)
}
#> Including isolates from ICU.
#> [1] FALSE
if (require("dplyr")) {

  # but is_new_episode() has a lot more flexibility than first_isolate(),
  # since you can now group on anything that seems relevant:
  df %>%
    group_by(patient, mo, ward) %>%
    mutate(flag_episode = is_new_episode(date, 365)) %>%
    select(group_vars(.), flag_episode)
}
#> # A tibble: 200 × 4
#> # Groups:   patient, mo, ward [186]
#>    patient mo            ward     flag_episode
#>    <chr>   <mo>          <chr>    <lgl>       
#>  1 E67091  B_ENTRC_FCLS  Clinical TRUE        
#>  2 D80438  B_CRYNB_STRT  ICU      TRUE        
#>  3 B26404  B_STPHY_CONS  Clinical TRUE        
#>  4 A73011  B_STPHY_CONS  Clinical TRUE        
#>  5 53F0B8  B_STPHY_CONS  Clinical TRUE        
#>  6 23C701  B_PROTS_MRBL  Clinical TRUE        
#>  7 022060  B_ENTRBC_CLOC ICU      TRUE        
#>  8 976997  B_STRPT_PYGN  Clinical TRUE        
#>  9 22B987  B_PSDMN_AERG  Clinical TRUE        
#> 10 FB50D6  B_STPHY_EPDR  ICU      TRUE        
#> # … with 190 more rows
# }