Triadic concept analysis for insights extraction from longitudinal studies in health

Abstract

In the health field, longitudinal studies involve the recording of clinical observations of the same sample of patients over successive periods, referred to as waves. This type of database serves as a valuable source of information and insights, particularly when examining the temporal aspect, allowing the extraction of relevant and non-obvious knowledge. The triadic concept analysis theory has been proposed to describe the ternary relationships between objects, attributes, and conditions. In this study, we present a methodology for exploring longitudinal health databases using both the triadic theory and triadic rules, which are similar to association rules but incorporate temporal relations. Through four case studies, we demonstrate the potential of applying triadic analysis to longitudinal databases to identify risk patterns, enhance decision-making processes, and deepen our understanding of temporal dynamics. These findings suggest a promising approach for describing longitudinal databases and obtaining insights to improve clinical decision-support systems for disease treatment.