Multistate models and their connection to competing risks

Abstract

Except for Section 2.2.4, this book has so far focused on competing risks, which model time until first event and type of that first event. We now turn to more complex multistate models, which, e.g., would also allow us to study the occurrence of subsequent events. Such investigations are often of subject matter interest. E.g., in medical applications they will allow for a more detailed study of the course of a patient’s disease. In the ONKO-KISS example of bloodstream infection in stem-cell transplanted patients studied in Section 5.2.2, such a model would allow us also to study mortality after infectious complication. In the SIR3 example of Sections 4.3, 5.2.2, 5.3.3 and Chapter 6, we investigated the impact of pneumonia admission diagnosis on intensive care unit mortality. A more complex multistate model would allow the further study of subsequent events which happen during unit stay such as ventilation switched on or off, catheter usage, or occurrence of hospitalacquired infections.