Creating a new variable based on two other variables

[Karen Redhead]

The data I am analysing, has a variable with depression scores of a family member and another variable with the relationship of the person (M is Mother, F is Father).

I need to create a new variable with only the scores for mothers.

Attached is a sample from the dataset which, includes over 20000 participants.

I was thinking of something like this..generate mum_EPDS3 = EPDS_Score3 if EPDS3_relation = "M", but it doesn’t work.

I would appreciate any help you could give me.

Thanks,
Karen

[Nick Cox]

Try

==

for testing equality. The first = for assignment is fine.

However, even

generate mum_EPDS3 = EPDS_Score3 if EPDS3_relation == "M"

will be wrong if -- as appears -- your variable EPDS3_relation is a numeric variable with value labels then the more direct route is something more like

generate mum_EPDS3 = EPDS_Score3 if EPDS3_relation == 1

where 1 should be replaced by whatever codes mothers if different.

Please note our longstanding request not to post MS Word attachments at 12.5 within https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#stata

One of several reasons why they are deprecated is that they leave key details like that above unclear.