title: Estimating time to event characteristics via longitudinal threshold regression models - an application to cervical dilation progression.
abstract: In longitudinal studies, it is sometimes of interest to estimate the distribution of the time a longitudinal process takes to traverse from one threshold to another. For example, the distribution of the time it takes a woman's cervical dilation to progress from 3 to 4 cm can aid the decision-making of obstetricians as to whether a stalled labor should be allowed to proceed or stopped in favor of other options. Often researchers treat this type of data structure as interval censored and employ traditional survival analysis methods. However, the traditional interval censoring approaches are inefficient in that they do not use all of the available data. In this paper, we propose utilizing a longitudinal threshold model to estimate the distribution of the elapsed time between two thresholds of the longitudinal process from repeated measurements. We extend this modeling framework to be used with multiple thresholds. A Wiener process under the first hitting time framework is used to represent survival distribution. We demonstrate our model through simulation studies and an analysis of data from the Consortium on Safe Labor study. Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, 915 Greene Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Caroline M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Mulatya
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, 915 Greene Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, U.S.A.. mclaina@mailbox.sc.edu.
authors.forename: Alexander C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: McLain
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, 915 Greene Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, 915 Greene Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, U.S.A.
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Hardin
authors.affiliation: Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 6100 Executive Boulevard, Rockville, 20852, MD, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Paul S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Albert
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007747:Labor Stage, First; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D011247:Pregnancy; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Weiner process; first hitting time; threshold regression