Estimated ratio of transition intensities

Compute the estimate and approximate standard error of the ratio of two estimated transition intensities from a fitted multi-state model at a given set of covariate values.

Usage

qratio.msm(
  x,
  ind1,
  ind2,
  covariates = "mean",
  ci = c("delta", "normal", "bootstrap", "none"),
  cl = 0.95,
  B = 1000,
  cores = NULL
)

Arguments

x

A fitted multi-state model, as returned by msm.

ind1

Pair of numbers giving the indices in the intensity matrix of the numerator of the ratio, for example, c(1,2).

ind2

Pair of numbers giving the indices in the intensity matrix of the denominator of the ratio, for example, c(2,1).

covariates

The covariate values at which to estimate the intensities. This can either be:

the string "mean", denoting the means of the covariates in the data (this is the default),

the number 0, indicating that all the covariates should be set to zero,

or a list of values, with optional names. For example

list (60, 1)

where the order of the list follows the order of the covariates originally given in the model formula, or a named list,

list (age = 60, sex = 1)

ci

If "delta" (the default) then confidence intervals are calculated by the delta method.

If "normal", then calculate a confidence interval by simulating B random vectors from the asymptotic multivariate normal distribution implied by the maximum likelihood estimates (and covariance matrix) of the log transition intensities and covariate effects, then transforming.

If "bootstrap" then calculate a confidence interval by non-parametric bootstrap refitting. This is 1-2 orders of magnitude slower than the "normal" method, but is expected to be more accurate. See boot.msm for more details of bootstrapping in msm.

cl

Width of the symmetric confidence interval to present. Defaults to 0.95.

B

Number of bootstrap replicates, or number of normal simulations from the distribution of the MLEs

cores

Number of cores to use for bootstrapping using parallel processing. See boot.msm for more details.

Value

A named vector with elements estimate, se, L and U containing the estimate, standard error, lower and upper confidence limits, respectively, of the ratio of intensities.

Details

For example, we might want to compute the ratio of the progression rate and recovery rate for a fitted model disease.msm with a health state (state 1) and a disease state (state 2). In this case, the progression rate is the (1,2) entry of the intensity matrix, and the recovery rate is the (2,1) entry. Thus to compute this ratio with covariates set to their means, we call

qratio.msm(disease.msm, c(1,2), c(2,1)) .

Standard errors are estimated by the delta method. Confidence limits are estimated by assuming normality on the log scale.

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