Skip to contents

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$date, episode_days = 60) # indices
#>   [1] 35 62 35  6  5 61 64 22 27 58 10 64 57 60 29 58 21  9 15  3 46 19 32 23 55
#>  [26]  5 58 29 21 36 62 41 18 12 20 41 62  6 38 26 37 41 33 35 22 15 20 61  4 19
#>  [51] 25 41 51 48 50 44 11 42 10 57 45  2 27 16 53 35 41 62 28 54 36 12  7 39  5
#>  [76] 12 58 19 14 63 30 28 10  8 54 17 46 30 53 32 14 31 30 17 46 16 39 59 48 52
#> [101] 49  1 12 57 33 37 51 12 22 13 27 16 60 36  9 64 10 33  2 42 40  4 24 15 60
#> [126] 31 63 49  2 43 45 53 53 38 48 38 39 48 60 61 12  4 27 37 37 27 28 56 34 28
#> [151] 47 11 14 58 24 54 64 16 59 15  7 31 45 23 10 32 21 61 43 21 14 38 58 13 14
#> [176] 12  1 59 24 23 60  6 19  7  5  3  7 32 37 24 54 24 52 24 39 15 58 32  9 14
is_new_episode(df$date, episode_days = 60) # TRUE/FALSE
#>   [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
#>  [13]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#>  [25]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#>  [37]  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
#>  [49] FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#>  [61]  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [73] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#>  [85] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE
#>  [97] FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [109] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [121]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#> [133] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE
#> [145] FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [157]  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
#> [169] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE
#> [181] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [193] FALSE FALSE FALSE 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: 2 × 46
#>   date       patient   age gender ward      mo           PEN   OXA   FLC   AMX  
#>   <date>     <chr>   <dbl> <chr>  <chr>     <mo>         <rsi> <rsi> <rsi> <rsi>
#> 1 2002-10-11 871360     78 M      Clinical  B_STPHY_EPDR R     NA    S     NA   
#> 2 2002-11-11 D80753     74 F      Outpatie… B_STPHY_CONS R     NA    S     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 387C40  2010-12-06 A         TRUE       
#>  2 6FC260  2017-06-07 C         FALSE      
#>  3 829641  2011-01-03 C         FALSE      
#>  4 914520  2003-07-31 B         FALSE      
#>  5 114570  2003-04-08 B         FALSE      
#>  6 612042  2017-03-15 A         FALSE      
#>  7 C80762  2017-12-21 C         FALSE      
#>  8 650870  2007-09-10 B         FALSE      
#>  9 CD4354  2009-02-19 B         FALSE      
#> 10 C6F894  2016-07-11 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 [179]
#>    ward     date       patient new_index new_logical
#>    <chr>    <date>     <chr>       <dbl> <lgl>      
#>  1 Clinical 2010-12-06 387C40          1 TRUE       
#>  2 ICU      2017-06-07 6FC260          1 TRUE       
#>  3 Clinical 2011-01-03 829641          1 TRUE       
#>  4 Clinical 2003-07-31 914520          1 TRUE       
#>  5 ICU      2003-04-08 114570          1 TRUE       
#>  6 ICU      2017-03-15 612042          1 TRUE       
#>  7 ICU      2017-12-21 C80762          1 TRUE       
#>  8 ICU      2007-09-10 650870          1 TRUE       
#>  9 ICU      2009-02-19 CD4354          1 TRUE       
#> 10 ICU      2016-07-11 C6F894          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          106             14            52            73
#> 2 ICU                60             12            36            48
#> 3 Outpatient         13              9            13            13
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 [192]
#>    patient mo            ward     flag_episode
#>    <chr>   <mo>          <chr>    <lgl>       
#>  1 387C40  B_KLBSL_PNMN  Clinical TRUE        
#>  2 6FC260  B_STPHY_HMNS  ICU      TRUE        
#>  3 829641  B_ESCHR_COLI  Clinical TRUE        
#>  4 914520  B_STPHY_AURS  Clinical TRUE        
#>  5 114570  B_STRPT_GRPA  ICU      TRUE        
#>  6 612042  B_ESCHR_COLI  ICU      TRUE        
#>  7 C80762  B_ESCHR_COLI  ICU      TRUE        
#>  8 650870  B_ENTRBC_CLOC ICU      TRUE        
#>  9 CD4354  B_ESCHR_COLI  ICU      TRUE        
#> 10 C6F894  B_STPHY_AURS  ICU      TRUE        
#> # … with 190 more rows
# }