Logo image
Fitting the Fractional Polynomial Model to Non-Gaussian Longitudinal Data
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Fitting the Fractional Polynomial Model to Non-Gaussian Longitudinal Data

Ji Hoon Ryoo, Jeffrey D. Long, Greg W. Welch, Arthur Reynolds and Susan M. Swearer
Frontiers in psychology, Vol.8, pp.1431-1431
08/22/2017
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01431
PMCID: PMC5572294
PMID: 28878723
url
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01431View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

As in cross sectional studies, longitudinal studies involve non-Gaussian data such as binomial, Poisson, gamma, and inverse-Gaussian distributions, and multivariate exponential families. A number of statistical tools have thus been developed to deal with non-Gaussian longitudinal data, including analytic techniques to estimate parameters in both fixed and random effects models. However, as yet growth modeling with non-Gaussian data is somewhat limited when considering the transformed expectation of the response via a linear predictor as a functional form of explanatory variables. In this study, we introduce a fractional polynomial model (FPM) that can be applied to model non-linear growth with non-Gaussian longitudinal data and demonstrate its use by fitting two empirical binary and count data models. The results clearly show the efficiency and flexibility of the FPM for such applications.
Psychology Psychology, Multidisciplinary Social Sciences

Details

Metrics

Logo image