How count an variable's frequency in specific column in sas - sas

Question

I would like to creare a variable along with each subject id, variable is ci_em_ti = COUNT “Impaired” values among the following variables: bvmdrt_cutoff, craftivmmt_cutoff, craftpimmt_cutoff, craftvdelt_cutoff, craftpdelt_cutoff, nlairt_cutoff, nlsdt_cutoff, nlldt_cutoff
How should I do this in SAS?
I tried
countc(cats(of bvmdrt_cutoff, craftivmmt_cutoff, craftpimmt_cutoff, craftvdelt_cutoff, craftpdelt_cutoff, nlairt_cutoff, nlsdt_cutoff), "Impaired")`
but it done not work

Answer 1

The function COUNTC() counts the number of times any of the listed characters appear. By searching for Impaired you are searching for the characters: adeiImpr. So one value of "Missing" will contribute 2 into the count since it has two lowercase i's and "Normal" will count as 3 because the letters r,m and a. "Imparied" will count as 8 since all of the characters are in the search list.
The function COUNT() will search for the number of times a substring occurs so you might try that.
Are you sure your values are character strings? If instead they are numbers with a user defined format attached the CATS() function will not use the formatted values. So you will need to search for the codes instead of the decodes.
PS There is no need to add the OF keyword when there is only one variable in the list. Either remove the OF or remove the commas.

Answer 2

You say count in a column but then your function is actually counting for several columns but a single row. Since you haven't provided usable data, I'll use SASHELP.HEART instead.
This shows how to display your values in each column.
proc freq data=sashelp.heart;
table chol_status bp_status weight_status smoking_status;
run;