The effect of missing data on design efficiency in repeated cross-sectional multi-period two-arm parallel cluster randomized trials.

ABSTRACT: The reduced efficiency of the cluster randomized trial design may be compensated by implementing a multi-period design. The trial then becomes longitudinal, with a risk of intermittently missing observations and dropout. This paper studies the effect of missing data on design efficiency in trials where the periods are the days of the week and clusters are followed for at least one week. The multilevel model with a decaying correlation structure is used to relate outcome to period and treatment condition. The variance of the treatment effect estimator is used to measure efficiency. When there is no data loss, efficiency increases with increasing number of subjects per day and number of weeks. Different weekly measurement schemes are used to evaluate the impact of planned missing data design

SUBMITTER: Moerbeek M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8367915 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature