How to Conduct and Statistically Analyze Case-Based Time Series Studies, One Patient at a Time

Abstract

We describe how to conduct case-based time-series studies in a practice setting. First we offer a sampler of clinical research questions that can be addressed by case-based studies. Second we construct a hypothetical case that illustrates the structure of a time-series project now being conducted in a university-based outpatient psychotherapy clinic. This case also familiarizes the reader with the data array of a time-series study. Third, we present two actual case studies, each carried out in a different outpatient setting. Fourth, we move to the logistics of how a time-series study is efficiently conducted in an applied setting. Finally we provide a step-by-step description of Simulation Modeling Analysis (SMA) for time-series data and how the practitioner can use freely-available software to analyze his or her real-world clinical practice data (i.e., relatively short streams of time-series data).