st: test for trend of an ordinal predictor

[Georgia <gn@mrc.soton.ac.uk>]

Hi there,

I am fitting a regression model with a normally distributed outcome (y) 
and an ordinal variable in 3 levels (x) as predictor. Obviously, when I 
use the command

xi: regress y i.x

I get separate coefficients for the second and the third level of the 
predictor while the first level is treated as reference. However, I 
would be very interested in testing the trend of the ordinal variable. 
In such a case, do I simply treat my ordinal var as a continuous one by 
typing

regress y x

or is there  a better way to test the trend of x? I would appreciate any 
help on this.

Georgia

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