Summarizing the extent of visit irregularity in longitudinal data

BACKGROUND: Observational longitudinal data often feature irregular, informative visit times. We propose descriptive measures to quantify the extent of irregularity to select an appropriate analytic outcome approach. METHODS: We divided the study period into bins and calculated the mean proportions of individuals with 0, 1, and > 1 visits per bin. Perfect repeated measures features everyone with 1 visit per bin. Missingness leads to individuals with 0 visits per bin while irregularity leads to individuals with > 1 visit per bin. We applied these methods to: 1) the TARGet Kids! study, which invites participation at ages 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24 months, and 2) the childhood-onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (cSLE) study which recommended at least 1 visit every 6 months. RESULTS: The mean proportions of 0 and > 1 visits per bin were above 0.67 and below 0.03 respectively in the TARGet Kids! study, suggesting repeated measures with missingness. For the cSLE study, bin widths of 6 months yielded mean proportions of 1 and > 1 visits per bin of 0.39, suggesting irregular visits. CONCLUSIONS: Our methods describe the extent of irregularity and help distinguish between protocol-driven visits and irregular visits. This is an important step in choosing an analytic strategy for the outcome.