The response variable that I am trying to model using PROC GLM in SAS is the number of days that a patient who has been admitted to a hospital, spends in the hospital. I have the data for all hospital admissions in the town with the total number of days these patients spent in the hospital. The records were kept for about 2 years. However, the length of stay was recorded not only for the admissions that occurred during this time but also the for all patients who were staying in hospital within this time. (Eg, if by the moment of data collection a patient spent 9,000 days in hospital (maybe in psychiatric care), then the number of days recorded for this patient will be 9,000) I would like to ask, whether it is reasonable to describe this response as having the gamma-distribution? (Its histogram looks like gamma with nu = 0.5) Thank you, Inna. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. =========================================================================== This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===========================================================================
