Application of Parametric and Nonparametric
Copula Marginal Models in Recurrent Failure Times
of Childhood Seizures: Bayesian Approach

Parisa Ataee; Mehdi Rahgozar; Enayatollah Bakhshi; Amin Shahrokhi

doi:10.26717/BJSTR.2018.10.001906

Research ArticleOpen Access

Application of Parametric and Nonparametric Copula Marginal Models in Recurrent Failure Times of Childhood Seizures: Bayesian Approach

Volume 10 - Issue 1

**Parisa Ataee¹, Mehdi Rahgozar*¹, Enayatollah Bakhshi¹ and Amin Shahrokhi²**

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- ¹Department of Biostatistics, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
- ² Pediatric Neurorehabilitation Research Centre, the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Received:October 06, 2018; Published: October 16, 2018

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.10.001906

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Abstract

Seizures are the most common pediatrics neurologic disorder in children who are suffering at least one seizure in the first 16 years of life. Anyone at any age can have a seizure in certain circumstances, such as in meningitis, alcohol withdrawal, and other acute situations that anyone can experience. Survival analysis typically focuses on time to event data and recurrent events is a multivariate survival analysis in which event occurs more than once per subject over follow-up time. The study of recurrent events data is of particular importance in medical statistics. The most crucial issue in recurrent data is a correlation between relapses of each subject. This study aimed to identify some risks factors of the recurrent times of childhood seizures by fitting copula models using a Bayesian approach. In a retrospective study, Data of 300 seizure children who had at least one relapse within the study period has been analyzed. In this study, we modelled the joint distribution of recurrent events using parametric copulas within a Bayesian framework.

Results indicated a positive correlation between successive gap-times. The age at the beginning of the reception, sex, history of hospitalization, taken drugs, family history, evolutionary status and fever during the seizure were significant on the hazard of recurrent times to relapses. Results imply that according to the DIC criterion, the Basic Weibull-Clayton model was selected as the more suitable model. Existing correlation between relapse times requires continued efforts. To decrease relapse probability especially in children who experience relapses when have not taken drugs, children without history of hospitalization, children with fever during their seizure, who have family history of seizure, who have delay evolutionary status, the age at the beginning of reception of children higher than ten years and girl’s special preventive and treatment efforts is recommended.

Keywords : Seizure; Meningitis; Bayesian approach; Recurrent events; Copula