Hi All,
I have a new question regarding collapsing consecutive dates.
For my study I am looking at antibiotic prescriptions. I have already determined the patients who would have been given a single primary antibiotic. However, now I have to address those individuals who would fall into the mixed therapy category. For these individuals I want to collapse the start and stop dates for antibiotics given on consecutive dates. In addition to collapsing to a single date, I need to retain the antibiotic given on those dates (see example below).
| ID | RX_1 | RX_2 | Start_1 | Start_2 | Stop_1 | Stop_2 | New_Start | New_Stop | New_RX_1 | New_RX_2 |
| 1 | 1 | 2 | 5/2/2001 | 5/3/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/3/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/3/2001 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 1 | 3 |
However, not all individuals will have multiple treaments that can be collapsed into one set of consecutive dates. In those cases I need a data set that will look something like this
| ID | RX_1 | RX_2 | Start_1 | Start_2 | Stop_1 | Stop_2 | New_Start1 | New_Stop1 | New_Start2 | New_Stop2 | New_RX1_1 | New_RX1_2 | New_RX2_1 | New_RX2_2 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 5/2/2001 | 5/10/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/19/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/2/2001 | 5/10/2001 | 5/19/2001 | 1 | | 2 | |
The overall data set has up to 8 different prescription (RX), start, and stop dates that have to be collapsed.
Thanks,
Jonathan
