Survival Analysis in Social Work Research

Correspondence to Dr Richard Pugh, School of Social Relations, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK. E-mail: spa08{at}keele.ac.uk Summary Survival analysis is a method of analysing any data set thatconsists of time to event where the data set is not temporallycompleted. That is, where not all of the initial events havebeen succeeded by the end events. Its major advantage is thatit allows the researcher to model the data using the whole set.Although widely used in other disciplines, with a few exceptions,it has received relatively little attention in social work.This paper provides a review of the method and illustrates itsapplication in a study of child protection practice.