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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$date, episode_days = 60) # indices
#>   [1] 31 31 27 14 48 21 11 37 16  9 51 51 33 47 10 36 53 38 14  7 21 64 38  5 54
#>  [26] 11 34  5 38  9 65 17 33 31 40 13  7  4 60 38 31  8 11  6 53 24 16 61 44 18
#>  [51] 10 36 11 50  2 63 15  1 66 35 32  2 59  5 36 14 32 35 21 44 18  8 32 43  9
#>  [76] 60 37  6 30 13 59 38 14 65 53 56 26 20 59 62 40 46 62 10 62 49 60 33 35 27
#> [101] 17 22  8 64 29 20 63 39 19 20 46  6 60  7 29  8 14 37  9 34 26 37 66 65 28
#> [126] 60  7 54 57 57 52 23 20 28 60  2 14 19 39 55 54  4 10 48 40 25 23 53 23 25
#> [151] 29  2 34  1  4 20  1 60 58 27 47 28 39 63 48 14  8 21  2 45 30 12 65 22 42
#> [176] 16 41 63 50 63  3  7 57 65 29 13  5 63 53 62 53 17 40 27 19 65  9  9 38 31
is_new_episode(df$date, episode_days = 60) # TRUE/FALSE
#>   [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [13] FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [25]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#>  [37] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [49]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
#>  [61]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
#>  [73] FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [85] FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [97]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [109] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [121] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE
#> [133] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [145]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
#> [157] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
#> [169] FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [181]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [193] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE 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: 1 × 46
#>   date       patient   age gender ward  mo      PEN   OXA   FLC   AMX   AMC  
#>   <date>     <chr>   <dbl> <chr>  <chr> <mo>    <sir> <sir> <sir> <sir> <sir>
#> 1 2002-06-18 012595     30 M      ICU   B_CRYNB I     NA    NA    NA    NA   
#> # … with 35 more variables: AMP <sir>, TZP <sir>, CZO <sir>, FEP <sir>,
#> #   CXM <sir>, FOX <sir>, CTX <sir>, CAZ <sir>, CRO <sir>, GEN <sir>,
#> #   TOB <sir>, AMK <sir>, KAN <sir>, TMP <sir>, SXT <sir>, NIT <sir>,
#> #   FOS <sir>, LNZ <sir>, CIP <sir>, MFX <sir>, VAN <sir>, TEC <sir>,
#> #   TCY <sir>, TGC <sir>, DOX <sir>, ERY <sir>, CLI <sir>, AZM <sir>,
#> #   IPM <sir>, MEM <sir>, MTR <sir>, CHL <sir>, COL <sir>, MUP <sir>, RIF <sir>

# 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 0DBB93  2009-05-08 B         FALSE      
#>  2 889500  2009-05-08 C         TRUE       
#>  3 A42180  2008-04-21 A         FALSE      
#>  4 C56827  2004-12-05 A         FALSE      
#>  5 672020  2013-04-01 C         FALSE      
#>  6 E19253  2006-08-23 C         TRUE       
#>  7 28F906  2004-04-05 C         FALSE      
#>  8 119392  2010-11-01 B         FALSE      
#>  9 105248  2005-06-16 A         FALSE      
#> 10 000090  2003-10-08 A         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 [175]
#>    ward     date       patient new_index new_logical
#>    <chr>    <date>     <chr>       <dbl> <lgl>      
#>  1 ICU      2009-05-08 0DBB93          1 TRUE       
#>  2 Clinical 2009-05-08 889500          1 TRUE       
#>  3 Clinical 2008-04-21 A42180          1 TRUE       
#>  4 Clinical 2004-12-05 C56827          1 TRUE       
#>  5 Clinical 2013-04-01 672020          1 TRUE       
#>  6 Clinical 2006-08-23 E19253          1 TRUE       
#>  7 ICU      2004-04-05 28F906          1 TRUE       
#>  8 Clinical 2010-11-01 119392          1 TRUE       
#>  9 Clinical 2005-06-16 105248          1 TRUE       
#> 10 ICU      2003-10-08 000090          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          113             14            52            70
#> 2 ICU                53             13            32            38
#> 3 Outpatient          9              6             8             9
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 [184]
#>    patient mo           ward     flag_episode
#>    <chr>   <mo>         <chr>    <lgl>       
#>  1 0DBB93  B_ESCHR_COLI ICU      TRUE        
#>  2 889500  B_ESCHR_COLI Clinical TRUE        
#>  3 A42180  B_ENTRC_AVIM Clinical TRUE        
#>  4 C56827  B_ESCHR_COLI Clinical TRUE        
#>  5 672020  B_STPHY_EPDR Clinical TRUE        
#>  6 E19253  B_STPHY_CONS Clinical TRUE        
#>  7 28F906  B_STPHY_CONS ICU      TRUE        
#>  8 119392  B_STPHY_CONS Clinical TRUE        
#>  9 105248  B_KLBSL_PNMN Clinical TRUE        
#> 10 000090  B_STPHY_EPDR ICU      TRUE        
#> # … with 190 more rows
# }