topic Separating multiple response variables in SAS in SAS Programming

Separating multiple response variables in SAS

icedcoffee3011 — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 17:05:03 GMT

Hello,

I have a multiple choice data set in which respondents can select more than one answer (select all that apply). The Excel sheet separates these multiple answers with a comma (i.e. 1,3). Value labels are assigned in the syntax but SAS groups these numbers into one new number; therefore, there is no value assigned. How can I make SAS separate these multiple answers?

*Frequencies should be: 9 and 3 not 8, 2 and 1*

The image above shows my output for one of the variables. The values are as follows: 1='Intervention clinic', 2='Medical office', and 3='Other'. The 13 in the table is because someone selected options 1 and 3 in the survey.

I hope I am being clear on what I want and appreciate any help.

Re: Separating multiple response variables in SAS

Tom — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 17:13:10 GMT

If you want to convert '1,3' into two separate observations do something like:

data want; 
  set have ;
  single=scan(multiple,1,',');
  output;
  do i=2 to countw(multiple,',');
    single=scan(multiple,1,',');
    output;
  end;
  format single $responce. ;
run;

Now you can run PROC FREQ on the variable SINGLE instead of the original variable MULTIPLE.

If your format for decoding the codes into human recognizable text is a numeric format then use the INPUT() function to convert the string into a number.

...
    single=input(scan(multiple,1,','),32.);
...
  format single responce. ;

Re: Separating multiple response variables in SAS

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 17:17:31 GMT

Separate the multiple choices into multiple observations:

data want;
set have (rename=(placeenc=_placeenc));
do i = 1 to countw(_placeenc,",");
  placeenc = scan(_placeenc,i,",");
  output;
end;
drop i _placeenc;
run;