title: Smoothing a discrete hazard function for the number of patients colonized with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in an intensive care unit.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Noor Azina
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Ismail
authors.forename: A N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Pettitt
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007902:Length of Stay; D016014:Linear Models; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013997:Time Factors