Importing XML for SDTM

[timswelch]

Hi, 

I am a grad student in the social sciences and a brand new SAS user with virtually no experience programming, and with virtually no experience with CDISC or SDTM.  

I obtained a clinical dataset from NIDA in the SDTM format (it compares an evidence based family therapy to TAU and has a number of questionnaires relevant to my research interests). 

I want to run SEM analyses using the .qs file. I have previously only conducted SEM in MPLUS, and am more comfortable running an analysis in MPLUS than SAS. However, the .qs file is in SDTM format, which MPLUS cannot read as it is. My basic understanding is the define.xml and define.xsl files can be used to import the file into SAS. Once this is accomplished I presume I could then conduct the analyses I'm interested in? Would doing this then create a SAS data file which I could export to a different software to for analysis? 

My questions are: 

1.How do I import a .xml file to read an SDTM file? I found this website ( https://www.lexjansen.com/nesug/nesug06/cc/cc33.pdf) that attempts to explain it: is this an accurate guide? Are there other guides that may be more helpful? I am using SAS 9.4 on a campus computer at my university for reference.  I am not sure if I have the proc cdisc or need to request it through our IT administrator either.     

2. Once the file is imported, what would the dataset look like? I'm accustomed to data in which the each column corresponds to a variable and each row an observation (person), would importing the XML file to SAS create a dataset with that kind of formatting? 

 Thank you so much for your assistance! 

--Tim 

[Reeza]

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@timswelch wrote:

2. Once the file is imported, what would the dataset look like? I'm accustomed to data in which the each column corresponds to a variable and each row an observation (person), would importing the XML file to SAS create a dataset with that kind of formatting? 

 Thank you so much for your assistance! 

--Tim 

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When you import the XML file it may create a single file or multiple files in a relational database type format. I suspect you'll get the latter and need to do some joins. 

This is an R page but gives a good design structure for the relational database portions.

https://r4ds.had.co.nz/relational-data.html