Generalizing the information content for stepped wedge designs: A marginal modeling approach
本文扩展了信息内容度量到离散结果，用于研究不完整阶梯楔形设计，推导了省略数据元素时的信息内容表达式，并通过数值研究揭示了不同数据元素信息模式的对称性特征。
Stepped wedge trials are increasingly adopted because practical constraints necessitate staggered roll-out. While a complete design requires clusters to collect data in all periods, resource and patient-centered considerations may call for an incomplete stepped wedge design to minimize data collection burden. To study incomplete designs, we expand the metric of information content to discrete outcomes. We operate under a marginal model with general link and variance functions, and derive information content expressions when data elements (cells, sequences, periods) are omitted. We show that the centrosymmetric patterns of information content can hold for discrete outcomes with the variance-stabilizing link function. We perform numerical studies under the canonical link function, and find that while the patterns of information content for cells are approximately centrosymmetric for all examined underlying secular trends, the patterns of information content for sequences or periods are more sensitive to the secular trend, and may be far from centrosymmetric.