In Stata, how can I only analyze observations with repeated measures using the mixed command? - stata

Question

I have a dataset on multiple outcome for individuals in two groups that were treated (or not treated) by an intervention at two time points. However, not every individual has complete data for each measure at each time point.
id
outcome
outcome_value
group
time
1
depression
10
1
1
1
depression
8
1
2
2
depression
10
2
1
2
depression
.
2
2
1
anxiety
12
1
1
1
anxiety
8
1
2
2
anxiety
12
2
1
2
anxiety
6
2
2
How do I exclude IDs that do not have an outcome in both periods? I only want to see how outcomes changed between groups over time for observations have data in all periods. I am using the mixed command in Stata to conduct this analysis.

Answer 1

First drop the missing rows
keep if !missing(outcome_value)
Then, keep the ID/outcome combinations that have _N==2
bysort id outcome: keep if _N==2
Output:
id outcome outco~ue group time ct
1 anxiety 8 1 2 2
1 anxiety 12 1 1 2
1 depression 10 1 1 2
1 depression 8 1 2 2
2 anxiety 6 2 2 2
2 anxiety 12 2 1 2
As #NickCox has pointed out in the comments, while we cannot directly combine these two, there is still a one-line approach:
bysort id outcome (time) : keep if !missing(outcome_value[1], outcome_value[2])
Of note, we cannot do this:
bysort id outcome : keep if !missing(outcome_value) & _N==2
because _N is not reduced by group until after the rows with missing outcome have been removed.