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The FREQ Procedure

Example 3.10 Cochran’s Q Test

When a binary response is measured several times or under different conditions, Cochran’s tests that the marginal probability of a positive response is unchanged across the times or conditions. When there are more than two response categories, you can use the CATMOD procedure to fit a repeated-measures model.


The data set Drugs contains data for a study of three drugs to treat a chronic disease (Agresti 2002). Forty-six subjects receive drugs A, B, and C. The response to each drug is either favorable ('F') or unfavorable ('U').

proc format;
   value $ResponseFmt 'F'='Favorable'
                      'U'='Unfavorable';
run;
data drugs;
   input Drug_A $ Drug_B $ Drug_C $ Count @@;
   datalines;
F F F  6   U F F  2   
F F U 16   U F U  4    
F U F  2   U U F  6   
F U U  4   U U U  6  
;

The following statements create one-way frequency tables of the responses to each drug. The AGREE option produces Cochran’s and other measures of agreement for the three-way table. These statements produce Output 3.10.1 through Output 3.10.5.

proc freq data=Drugs;
   tables Drug_A Drug_B Drug_C / nocum;
   tables Drug_A*Drug_B*Drug_C / agree noprint;
   format Drug_A Drug_B Drug_C $ResponseFmt.;
   weight Count;
   title 'Study of Three Drug Treatments for a Chronic Disease';
run;

The one-way frequency tables in Output 3.10.1 provide the marginal response for each drug. For drugs A and B, 61% of the subjects reported a favorable response while 35% of the subjects reported a favorable response to drug C. Output 3.10.2 and Output 3.10.3 display measures of agreement for the 'Favorable' and 'Unfavorable' levels of drug A, respectively. McNemar’s test shows a strong discordance between drugs B and C when the response to drug A is favorable.

Output 3.10.1 One-Way Frequency Tables
Study of Three Drug Treatments for a Chronic Disease

The FREQ Procedure

Drug_A Frequency Percent
Favorable 28 60.87
Unfavorable 18 39.13

Drug_B Frequency Percent
Favorable 28 60.87
Unfavorable 18 39.13

Drug_C Frequency Percent
Favorable 16 34.78
Unfavorable 30 65.22

Output 3.10.2 Measures of Agreement for Drug A Favorable
McNemar's Test
Statistic (S) 10.8889
DF 1
Pr > S 0.0010

Simple Kappa Coefficient
Kappa -0.0328
ASE 0.1167
95% Lower Conf Limit -0.2615
95% Upper Conf Limit 0.1960

Output 3.10.3 Measures of Agreement for Drug A Unfavorable
McNemar's Test
Statistic (S) 0.4000
DF 1
Pr > S 0.5271

Simple Kappa Coefficient
Kappa -0.1538
ASE 0.2230
95% Lower Conf Limit -0.5909
95% Upper Conf Limit 0.2832


Output 3.10.4 displays the overall kappa coefficient. The small negative value of kappa indicates no agreement between drug B response and drug C response.

Cochran’s is statistically significant (=0.0144 in Output 3.10.5), which leads to rejection of the hypothesis that the probability of favorable response is the same for the three drugs.

Output 3.10.4 Overall Measures of Agreement
Overall Kappa Coefficient
Kappa -0.0588
ASE 0.1034
95% Lower Conf Limit -0.2615
95% Upper Conf Limit 0.1439

Test for Equal Kappa Coefficients
Chi-Square 0.2314
DF 1
Pr > ChiSq 0.6305

Output 3.10.5 Cochran’s Q Test
Cochran's Q, for Drug_A by
Drug_B by Drug_C
Statistic (Q) 8.4706
DF 2
Pr > Q 0.0145

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