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Smoothing a discrete hazard function for the number of patients colonized with Methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in an intensive care unit
Author(s) -
Ismail Noor Azina,
Pettitt A. N.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.1654
Subject(s) - hazard , smoothing , hazard ratio , colonization , intensive care unit , statistics , medicine , bayesian probability , staphylococcus aureus , covariate , methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus , proportional hazards model , mathematics , econometrics , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , bacteria , ecology , confidence interval , genetics
A new method for estimating the time to colonization of Methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) patients is developed in this paper. The time to colonization of MRSA is modelled using a Bayesian smoothing approach for the hazard function. There are two prior models discussed in this paper: the first difference prior and the second difference prior. The second difference prior model gives smoother estimates of the hazard functions and, when applied to data from an intensive care unit (ICU), clearly shows increasing hazard up to day 13, then a decreasing hazard. The results clearly demonstrate that the hazard is not constant and provide a useful quantification of the effect of length of stay on the risk of MRSA colonization which provides useful insight. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.