topic Re: Subsetting by drug usage (past, previous, current) in SAS Programming

Subsetting by drug usage (past, previous, current)

mdakkak — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 23:08:19 GMT

Hi,

I have a dataset where I have years 0-8 and am only interested in years 0-2 for now. I want to compare between subjects who never used drugs and subjects who are currently using drugs (at year 2). I also need to compare between subjects who did not report drug use at year 2, but have reported drug use previously to the subjects who have never reported drug use.

drug use variable: hard_drugs

Time variable: years

Also, the same subjects were followed over 8 years, so there are repeated measures.

I used this code below to get the current drug users.

DATA CurrentDrugUsers;
SET PROJECT1.INPUT;
WHERE years = 2 AND hard_drugs = 1;
RUN;

I was able to get subjects who are currently not taking drugs, however, I cannot separate them into "previous" vs "never" groups.

DATA NeverDrugUsers;
SET PROJECT1.INPUT;
IF years = 2 AND hard_drugs = 0 ;
RUN;

Re: Subsetting by drug usage (past, previous, current)

Patrick — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 00:23:14 GMT

Providing sample data and the desired result reduces ambiguity. Below two options for how I understand your question.

data have;
  input subject $ year hard_drugs;
  datalines;
a 0 0
a 1 0
a 2 0
b 0 1
b 1 0
b 2 0
c 0 0
c 1 1
c 2 1
;

/* option 1 */
proc sort data=have out=inter;
  by subject year;
  where year<=2;
run;

data want_1;
  set inter;
  by subject year;
  retain past_hard_drugs_flg 0;
  if hard_drugs=1 then past_hard_drugs_flg=1;
  if last.subject then
    do;
      output;
      past_hard_drugs_flg=0;
    end;
run;


/* option 2 */
data want_2;
  if _n_=1 then 
    do;
      dcl hash h1(dataset:'have(where=(year<2 and hard_drugs=1))');
      h1.defineKey('subject');
      h1.defineDone();
    end;

  set have (where=(year=2));
  past_hard_drugs_flg= not h1.check();
run;

Re: Subsetting by drug usage (past, previous, current)

tarheel13 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 19:03:31 GMT

It would seem to me that you're going to need to make a flag for ever drug use. You can get an ever flag a couple of different ways. Most common is probably proc sql or retain statement.