Data cleaning

[Beth PeterK]

Hi there,

I'm a clinician with no experience with stata. I have some data to analyse from 3 clinical trials. Each trial has several stata files, containing a range of variables.
I've no idea how to work with the files.
In one trial there are ~80 patients, each having a unique subject identifier. However, this unique identifier recurrs several times as each patient has at least 10 visits under the same unique subject identifier. However, what I'm finding more problematic is that one column (e.g. "Outcome") has multiple string variable within it e.g. heart rate, CRP, steroid dose. The data for whichever "Outcome" is then in a separate column (e.g. "Value).
Ideally, I would reshape the data with one row per subject and I would somehow separate the "Outcome" into separate/distinguishable columns. However, how can I do this when there are multiple time points for each "Outcome" e.g. the heart on day 1, day 7, day 14, day 28 etc. all for the same patient?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Rich Goldstein]

please read the FAQ and follow its advice; in particular, showing real(istic) example data using -dataex- and posted in CODE blocks is much clearer than the use of language to (partially) describe the data can be; I believe there are relatively easy solutions to your issues but without data to try them on, I am not willing to make guesses

[Nick Cox]

I came here to say what Rich said. One nuance deserves emphasis. The data may, as we all understand, be sensitive or confidential. Realistic examples with fake identifiers and invented values can be highly valuable, Indeed this point too is covered in the FAQ.