topic Re: How to create a scale of number of responses to a group of variables in SAS Procedures

How to create a scale of number of responses to a group of variables

jloft12 — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 15:49:52 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to create a new variable in a data set which would act as a scale reflecting the number of positive responses among a group of other variables.

So, there are 5 variables with categorical, binary responses (yes/no), and I want to make a new variable which would have 6 categorical responses which might be All Five, Four, Three, Two, One and None. For example, an observation with a 'Yes' response to 2 of the 5 variables would warrant a "Two" in my new variable. Three 'Yes's' would be a Three, and so on.

Making the 'All 5' and 'None' is easy, and I know I could sort of use brute force and set up if-then statements for all the possible combinations for 2, 3, and 4, but I feel there may be a simpler and less error-prone way to go about this in a data statement. Any ideas?

Thank you in advance!

Re: How to create a scale of number of responses to a group of variables

PaigeMiller — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 16:02:30 GMT

If your binary variables named x1 through x5 are numeric and coded as 0 or 1, this is pretty easy.

newvariable=sum(of x1-x5);

Re: How to create a scale of number of responses to a group of variables

DartRodrigo — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 16:07:07 GMT

Hi mate,

So you only need to make this new variable about the YES ?

Re: How to create a scale of number of responses to a group of variables

MikeZdeb — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 17:13:51 GMT

Hi, if you really want words ...

data x;
input x1-x5;
datalines;

. . . . .
0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0
1 1 1 0 0
1 1 1 1 0
1 1 1 1 1
;

data y;
set x;
score = upcase(put(sum(of x: ),words.));
run;

x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 score

. . . . . MISSING

0 0 0 0 0 ZERO
1 0 0 0 0 ONE
1 1 0 0 0 TWO
1 1 1 0 0 THREE
1 1 1 1 0 FOUR
1 1 1 1 1 FIVE