st: multiple repeated measures

[laura hendrix <lhendrix.stata@gmail.com>]

I have a 14-item survey that was administered weekly to a group of
subjects for 8 weeks with responses to each question ranging from 1-5
with some subjects having missing weeks and/or missing responses:

              Week1                    Week2
------------------------------------------------------------------
            Question                   Question
------------------------------------------------------------------
 ID         1  2  3  4  5  6  7 8       1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1           1  3  .  2  2  1  5  .        2  4  2  2 .  3  4  5
2           4  4  4  3  3  .  1  1       2  3  2  2  4  5  1  1

and so on.

I would like to determine whether there has been a significant change
in score for each question between weeks 1 and 8.  Without going into
a complex longitudinal analysis which I have no idea how to do, how
can I

1.  Group questions into 1-2  3-4  5-6  7-8 and generate a new
variable containing the highest value in each group (counting
missing=0)
2.  determine whether there has been a significant change in score for
each item between weeks 1 and 8
??

Any help with coding would be most appreciated!

Laura Hendrix
Research Associate
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC

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