Characterizing persistent disturbing behavior using longitudinal and multivariate techniques |
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| Authors: | Jan Serroyen Liesbeth Bruckers Geert Rogiers |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Methodology and Statistics , University of Maastricht , Maastricht , The Netherlands;2. Interuniversity Center for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics , Hasselt University , Diepenbeek , Belgium;3. Interuniversity Center for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics , Hasselt University , Diepenbeek , Belgium;4. Psychiatric Hospital Sancta Maria , Sint-Truiden , Belgium |
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| Abstract: | Persistent disturbing behavior (PDB) refers to a chronic condition in therapy-resistant psychiatric patients. Since these patients are highly unstable and difficult to maintain in their natural living environment and even in hospital wards, it is important to properly characterize this group. Previous studies in the Belgian province of Limburg indicated that the size of this group was larger than anticipated. Here, using a score calculated from longitudinal psychiatric registration data in 611 patients, we characterize the difference between PDB patients and a set of control patients. These differences are studied both at a given point in time, using discriminant analysis, as well as in terms of the evolution of the score over time, using longitudinal data analysis methods. Further, using clustering techniques, the group of PDB patients is split into two subgroups, characterized in terms of a number of ordinal scores. Such findings are useful from a scientific as well as from an organizational point of view. |
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| Keywords: | cluster analysis discriminant analysis longitudinal data multivariate methods psychiatry |
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