User Guide

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Chapter 10
Assumptions. Probabilities for the event of interest should depend only on time after the
initial event—they are assumed to be stable with respect to absolute time. That is, cases
that enter the study at different times (for example, patients who begin treatment at
different times) should behave similarly. There should also be no systematic
differences between censored and uncensored cases. If, for example, many of the
censored cases are patients with more serious conditions, your results may be biased.
Related procedures. The Kaplan-Meier procedure uses a method of calculating life
tables that estimates the survival or hazard function at the time of each event. The Life
Tables procedure uses an actuarial approach to survival analysis that relies on
partitioning the observation period into smaller time intervals and may be useful for
dealing with large samples. If you have variables that you suspect are related to survival
time or variables that you want to control for (covariates), use the Cox Regression
procedure. If your covariates can have different values at different points in time for the
same case, use Cox Regression with Time-Dependent Covariates.
To Obtain a Kaplan-Meier Survival Analysis
 From the menus choose:
Analyze
Survival
Kaplan-Meier…
Figure 10-1
Kaplan-Meier dialog box