Mini-Assignment 2

For this assignment you will be working with Health Evaluation and Linkage to Primary Care (HELP) data set. The data set is located on the P-drive in the Practice Data folder.

The HELP study was a clinical trial for adult inpatients recruited from a detoxification unit. Patients with no primary care physician were randomized to receive a multidisciplinary assessment and a brief motivational intervention or usual care, with the goal of linking them to primary medical care.

The data set contains 453 observations on the following variables:

  • age: subject age at baseline (in years)
  • anysub: use of any substance post-detox: a factor with levels no yes
  • cesd: Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression measure at baseline (high scores indicate more depressive symptoms)
  • d1: lifetime number of hospitalizations for medical problems (measured at baseline)
  • daysanysub: time (in days) to first use of any substance post-detox
  • dayslink: time (in days) to linkage to primary care
  • drugrisk: Risk Assessment Battery drug risk scale at baseline
  • e2b: number of times in past 6 months entered a detox program (measured at baseline)
  • female: 0 for male, 1 for female
  • sex: a factor with levels male female
  • g1b :experienced serious thoughts of suicide in last 30 days (measured at baseline): a factor with levels no yes
  • homeless: housing status: a factor with levels housed homeless
  • i1: average number of drinks (standard units) consumed per day, in the past 30 days (measured at baseline)
  • i2: maximum number of drinks (standard units) consumed per day, in the past 30 days (measured at baseline)
  • id: subject identifier
  • indtot: Inventory of Drug Use Consequences (InDUC) total score (measured at baseline)
  • linkstatus: post-detox linkage to primary care (0 = no, 1 = yes)
  • link: post-detox linkage to primary care: no yes
  • mcs: SF-36 Mental Component Score (measured at baseline, lower scores indicate worse status)
  • pcs: SF-36 Physical Component Score (measured at baseline, lower scores indicate worse status)
  • pss_fr: perceived social support by friends (measured at baseline, higher scores indicate more support)
  • racegrp: race/ethnicity: levels black hispanic other white
  • satreat: any BSAS substance abuse treatment at baseline: no yes
  • sexrisk: Risk Assessment Battery sex risk score (measured at baseline)
  • substance: primary substance of abuse: alcohol cocaine heroin
  • treat: randomized to HELP clinic: no yes

Questions

Load in the HELP data set.

Question 1: Make a frequency table for sex. How many patients in the study are female?

Question 2: Make a frequency table for d1. How many patients in the study have never been hospitalized for medical problems

Question 3: What percentage of patients in the study have been hospitalized fewer than 5 times? (Round to nearest whole percentage?

Question 4: Subset the data to include only patients whose primary substance of abuse is cocaine and who are at least 40 years old. How many patients in the study are at least 40 years old and have cocaine listed as his/her primary abuse substance?

Question 5: Using the subset you constructed make a frequency table of sex. What percentage of patients who are at least 40 years old and have cocaine listed as his/her primary abuse substance are male?

Submit your answers in moodle under Mini-Assignment 2.