R help - May 2009 - Function recommendation for this study...

Hi,
I'm not used to thinking along these lines, and wanted to ask your advice:

Suppose you have a sample of around 100, consisting of patients according to
doctors, in which patients and doctors are given a questionnaire with
categorical responses.  Each patient somehow has roughly 3 doctors, or 3
rows of data.  The goal is to assess by category of each question or DV the
agreement between the patient and 3 doctors.  For example, a question may be
asked about how well the treatment is understood by the patient, and the
patient answers with their perception, while the 3 doctors each answer with
their perception.

The person currently working on this has used a Wilcoxon Sign Rank test, and
asked what I thought.  Personally, I shy away from nonparametrics and prefer
parametric Bayesian methods, but of course am up for whatever is most
appropriate.  I was concerned about using multiple Wilcoxon tests, one for
each question, and wondering if there is a parametric method in R for
something like this, and a method which is multivariate?  Thanks for any
suggestions.
-- 
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Paul,

I suggest looking up "observer agreement". The description of your
study
sounds like a classical
categorical observer agreement problem. I can't give
a reference off the top of my head, but if you get
stuck, e-mail me and I'll try and find a ref to get you started.

Murray M Cooper, Ph.D.
Richland Statistics
9800 N 24th St
Richland, MI, USA 49083
Mail: richstat at earthlink.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Heinrich Dietrich" <paul.heinrich.dietrich at
gmail.com>
To: <r-help at r-project.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 8:25 AM
Subject: [R] Function recommendation for this study...

>
> Hi,
> I'm not used to thinking along these lines, and wanted to ask your
advice:
>
> Suppose you have a sample of around 100, consisting of patients according 
> to
> doctors, in which patients and doctors are given a questionnaire with
> categorical responses.  Each patient somehow has roughly 3 doctors, or 3
> rows of data.  The goal is to assess by category of each question or DV 
> the
> agreement between the patient and 3 doctors.  For example, a question may 
> be
> asked about how well the treatment is understood by the patient, and the
> patient answers with their perception, while the 3 doctors each answer 
> with
> their perception.
>
> The person currently working on this has used a Wilcoxon Sign Rank test, 
> and
> asked what I thought.  Personally, I shy away from nonparametrics and 
> prefer
> parametric Bayesian methods, but of course am up for whatever is most
> appropriate.  I was concerned about using multiple Wilcoxon tests, one for
> each question, and wondering if there is a parametric method in R for
> something like this, and a method which is multivariate?  Thanks for any
> suggestions.
> -- 
> View this message in context: 
>
http://www.nabble.com/Function-recommendation-for-this-study...-tp23469646p23469646.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ______________________________________________
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>