Hi,

Yves' answer is quite good. My only concern is whether bloodpresure should be recorded in a independent file (BLOOD.REC) or it is a field in the Visits.rec one.

As far as I understood blood presure levels are going to be measured in each visits. If that is the case, in my opinion blood presure should be field of the visits.rec file.

Treatment, I dare say, should be recorded in a independent file since it shouldn't change with every visit.

What do you think?

Greetings, Pedro

Pedro Arias Bohigas John Ericssons gatan, 12 5 tr 112 22 Stockholm Sweden Phone (cell) 0734421130 Phone (international calls)+46734421130

Dear epidata

I would like to set up a database for a clinic. The 4 rec files are history, visit, bloodresults and treatment. The clinicnr of the patient is the unique id that I would like to carry over between these rec files. Secondly the number of records for visits/bloodresults/treatment for each patient with a specific clinicnr can be more than one over time. However history only has to be completed once (can be mother file?).

When creating a relational database am I right if I say that I cannot keep clinicnr as the unique nr in every rec file as that will only allow ONE record with that clinicnr and I need to be able to do multiple records eg for visits on that one clinicnr. The House.rec etc example does not really help me with this as the visit rec file is the last rec file. I have 3 "children files" following one after another.

Please help with the check files to relate these 4 files whilst keeping clinicnr as the unique id but allowing multiple records per clinicnr.

Thanks

Paul

Prof Paul Rheeder

Division of Clinical Epidemiology

Faculty of Health Sciences

University of Pretoria

PO Box 667

Pretoria 0001

Tel 27 12 354 1488

Fax 27 12 354 1489

Hello Paul,

Yes, you're right: in each "child file" there must be the clinicnr (declared as "key") and, in your case, there must be also another id-number in each child file declared as "key unique". Usually, it's convenient to define a "visitnr" in each child file and to concatenate "clinicnr | visitnr" in a unique id-number

As far as the relations between files are concerned, I would recommend to relate each child file to the master file (an not to relate the first child file to the master file, then the second child file to the first child file, and so forth). Please note that this can be done anywhere in the master file (i.e. at a different place for each child file or at a same place). Please note also that you can decide to open a child file or not, according to the result of a question.

Hereafter is an example of what you can do. Hope it helps.

Happy computing!

Yves

---

Master file (for example clinic.chk for clinic.rec file)

---

CLINICNR (better if defined as string) key unique mustenter END

VAR1 ... END

VARXXX ... AFTER ENTRY HELP "do you want to enter visit data for this patient? (Y/N)" KEYS="YN" TYPE=CONFIRMATION IF RESULTVALUE=2 THEN GOTO nextvar ELSE IF RESULTVALUE=1 THEN RELATE clinicnr VISIT.REC ENDIF ENDIF END END

...

VARYYY ... AFTER ENTRY HELP "do you want to enter blood data for this patient? (Y/N)" KEYS="YN" TYPE=CONFIRMATION IF RESULTVALUE=2 THEN GOTO nextvar ELSE IF RESULTVALUE=1 THEN RELATE clinicnr BLOOD.REC ENDIF ENDIF END END

etc.

---

Child file (for example visit.chk for the visit.rec file)

---

CLINICNR (string variable) key END

** please note that the above field will be automatically filled **

VISITNR (string variable) key mustenter END

VISITID (string variable) key unique BEFORE ENTRY let visitid=clinicnr+visitnr goto nextvar END END