Hello Statalisters,
Suppose I have two variables where one is a dichotomous outcome
and the other is ordinal (mild, uncomfortable, annoying, &
debilitating). My question is this: is it possible to change
the "interval" between strata of the ordinal variable, that is,
if the clinician can justify asserting that, for example,
"annoying" is 'five times worse' than "mild" and "debilitating"
is 'eight times worse' than "mild", is there a way to
incorporate that assessment into a non-parametric test, e.g.
Wilcoxon rank sum test? In short, I suppose I am addressing
two issues: interval length of the ordinal variable and
"importance" of the severe responses (annoying & debilitating)
relative to mild. Would something like this even be acceptable
statistically & justifiable mathematically (assuming it is
clinically justifiable), not to mention, possible in STATA?
Unfortunately, my cursory search of the literature (and STATA
help files) did not return anything relevant; any suggestions
and/or references I may take advantage of?
Many thanks,
Clint Thompson
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