statetable.msm {msm}

Table of transitions

Description

Calculates a frequency table counting the number of times each pair of states were observed in successive observation times. This can be a useful way of summarising multi-state data.

Usage

statetable.msm(state, subject, data = NULL)

Arguments

state

Observed states, assumed to be ordered by time within each subject.

subject

Subject identification numbers corresponding to state. If not given, all observations are assumed to be on the same subject.

data

An optional data frame in which the variables represented by subject and state can be found.

Details

If the data are intermittently observed (panel data) this table should not be used to decide what transitions should be allowed in the Q matrix, which works in continuous time. This function counts the transitions between states over a time interval, not in real time. There can be observed transitions between state r and s over an interval even if q_{rs}=0, because the process may have passed through one or more intermediate states in the middle of the interval.

Value

A frequency table with starting states as rows and finishing states as columns.

Author(s)

C. H. Jackson [e-mail]

See Also

crudeinits.msm

Examples

## Heart transplant data
data(cav)

## 148 deaths from state 1, 48 from state 2 and 55 from state 3.
statetable.msm(state, PTNUM, data=cav)