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

# filter on results from the third 60-day episode only, using base R
df[which(get_episode(df$date, 60) == 3), ]
#> # A tibble: 3 × 46
#>   date       patient   age gender ward  mo           PEN   OXA   FLC   AMX  
#>   <date>     <chr>   <dbl> <chr>  <chr> <mo>         <rsi> <rsi> <rsi> <rsi>
#> 1 2002-08-14 785317     51 F      ICU   B_ESCHR_COLI R     NA    NA    NA   
#> 2 2002-07-30 218912     76 F      ICU   B_ESCHR_COLI R     NA    NA    NA   
#> 3 2002-07-24 F35553     51 M      ICU   B_STPHY_AURS R     NA    S     R    
#> # … 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 C25552  2012-11-22 A         FALSE      
#>  2 76F141  2012-05-04 A         TRUE       
#>  3 1B144C  2004-05-10 B         TRUE       
#>  4 0C0688  2014-09-05 C         TRUE       
#>  5 725779  2010-09-04 B         FALSE      
#>  6 527306  2017-12-12 B         FALSE      
#>  7 E68281  2017-03-02 B         FALSE      
#>  8 A96395  2014-03-11 C         FALSE      
#>  9 686445  2012-05-24 C         FALSE      
#> 10 195736  2008-08-29 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 [182]
#>    ward       date       patient new_index new_logical
#>    <chr>      <date>     <chr>       <dbl> <lgl>      
#>  1 Outpatient 2012-11-22 C25552          1 TRUE       
#>  2 Clinical   2012-05-04 76F141          1 TRUE       
#>  3 Outpatient 2004-05-10 1B144C          1 TRUE       
#>  4 Clinical   2014-09-05 0C0688          1 TRUE       
#>  5 Outpatient 2010-09-04 725779          1 TRUE       
#>  6 ICU        2017-12-12 527306          1 TRUE       
#>  7 Clinical   2017-03-02 E68281          1 TRUE       
#>  8 Clinical   2014-03-11 A96395          1 TRUE       
#>  9 Clinical   2012-05-24 686445          1 TRUE       
#> 10 Clinical   2008-08-29 195736          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          111             14            51            73
#> 2 ICU                61             13            36            42
#> 3 Outpatient         10              6             9             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 [193]
#>    patient mo           ward       flag_episode
#>    <chr>   <mo>         <chr>      <lgl>       
#>  1 C25552  B_STPHY_CONS Outpatient TRUE        
#>  2 76F141  B_ESCHR_COLI Clinical   TRUE        
#>  3 1B144C  B_STRPT_PNMN Outpatient TRUE        
#>  4 0C0688  B_ESCHR_COLI Clinical   TRUE        
#>  5 725779  B_STRPT_PNMN Outpatient TRUE        
#>  6 527306  B_STRPT_SLVR ICU        TRUE        
#>  7 E68281  B_STPHY_AURS Clinical   TRUE        
#>  8 A96395  B_ENTRC_FCLS Clinical   TRUE        
#>  9 686445  B_PROTS_MRBL Clinical   TRUE        
#> 10 195736  B_STPHY_AURS Clinical   TRUE        
#> # … with 190 more rows
# }