Crossover Designs with Random Periods

Crossover experiments usually are modelled with fixed treatment, carryover, and period effects while the effects of subjects are assumed to be random. In actual realisations of crossover experiments however periods are quite arbitrary intervals of time, depending on administrative affairs for instance and possibly they are even varying from subject to subject. Modelling these arbitrary periods as random effects either globally for all subjects or individually for each one seems to be more adequate than the assumption of fixed period effects. This paper is concerned with the two treatments, two periods crossover design. It is described that—in spite of the somewhat involved covariance structure—the estimators and tests developed for models with fixed period effects remain valid for models with random effects for periods provided that no treatment X period interaction exists.