PubMed ID: 8677397
Author(s): Gange SJ, Linton KL, Scott AJ, DeMets DL, Klein R. A comparison of methods for correlated ordinal measures with ophthalmic applications. Stat Med. 1995 Sep 30;14(18):1961-74.
Journal: Statistics In Medicine, Volume 14, Issue 18, Sep 1995
For many clinical trials and epidemiologic investigations in the field of ophthalmology, paired ordinal data are often collected through the detailed grading of retinal photographs. One method for analysis of these data is the extension of the generalized estimating equation (GEE) methodology to multinomial data with cumulative link functions. Prior to the development of this advanced technique, however, ophthalmologists developed a method of combining the ordinal responses of both eyes of a patient into a single person-level response on a new ordinal scale. A relationship between the regression coefficients of these two methods is derived as a function of the correlation between eyes. We investigate the applicability of this result and the relationship of the standard errors in simulation experiments and in an example from the Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy.