title: Addressing missing data in clinical studies of kidney diseases.
abstract: Missing data constitute a problem present in all studies of medical research. The most common approach to handling missing data-complete case analysis-relies on assumptions about missing data that rarely hold in practice. The implications of this approach are biased and inefficient descriptions of relationships of interest. Here, various approaches for handling missing data in clinical studies are described. In particular, this work promotes the use of multiple imputation methods that rely on assumptions about missingness that are more flexible than those assumptions relied on by the most common method in use. Furthermore, multiple imputation methods are becoming increasingly more accessible in mainstream statistical software packages, making them both a sound and practical choice. The use of multiple imputation methods is illustrated with examples pertinent to kidney research, and concrete guidance on their use is provided.
authors: Division of Nephrology and mmrath@stanford.edu.
authors: Maria E
authors: ME
authors: Montez-Rath
authors: Division of Nephrology and.
authors: Wolfgang C
authors: WC
authors: Winkelmayer
authors: Quantitative Sciences Unit, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California.
authors: Manisha
authors: M
authors: Desai
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009398:Nephrology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012984:Software
keywords: biostatistics; epidemiology and outcomes; outcomes