Converts PCL-5 symptom scores from their original 0-4 scale to binary values (0/1) based on the clinical threshold for symptom presence (>=2).
Arguments
- data
A dataframe containing exactly 20 columns with PCL-5 item scores (output of rename_ptsd_columns). Each symptom should be scored on a 0-4 scale where:
0 = Not at all
1 = A little bit
2 = Moderately
3 = Quite a bit
4 = Extremely
Note: This function should only be used with raw symptom scores before calculating the total score, as it will convert all values in the dataframe to 0/1, which would invalidate any total score column if present.
Value
A dataframe with the same structure as input but with all symptom scores converted to binary values:
0 = Symptom absent (original scores 0-1)
1 = Symptom present (original scores 2-4)
Details
The function implements the standard clinical threshold for PTSD symptom presence where:
Scores of 0-1 ("Not at all" and "A little bit") → 0 (symptom absent)
Scores of 2-4 ("Moderately" to "Extremely") → 1 (symptom present)
Examples
# Create sample data
sample_data <- data.frame(
matrix(sample(0:4, 20 * 10, replace = TRUE),
nrow = 10,
ncol = 20)
)
colnames(sample_data) <- paste0("symptom_", 1:20)
# Binarize scores
binary_data <- binarize_data(sample_data)
binary_data # Should only show 0s and 1s
#> symptom_1 symptom_2 symptom_3 symptom_4 symptom_5 symptom_6 symptom_7
#> 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1
#> 2 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
#> 3 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
#> 4 1 0 1 1 1 0 1
#> 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
#> 6 1 1 0 1 1 0 1
#> 7 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
#> 8 0 1 0 0 1 1 1
#> 9 1 0 0 1 1 1 1
#> 10 0 1 1 0 1 0 1
#> symptom_8 symptom_9 symptom_10 symptom_11 symptom_12 symptom_13 symptom_14
#> 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
#> 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 1
#> 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 1
#> 4 1 1 0 0 1 0 1
#> 5 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
#> 6 0 0 1 0 0 1 1
#> 7 1 1 1 1 1 0 1
#> 8 1 1 1 0 1 0 1
#> 9 1 1 1 0 0 0 1
#> 10 0 1 0 1 1 0 0
#> symptom_15 symptom_16 symptom_17 symptom_18 symptom_19 symptom_20
#> 1 1 0 1 1 1 1
#> 2 0 1 1 0 1 0
#> 3 0 1 1 0 0 1
#> 4 1 1 0 1 1 1
#> 5 0 1 1 1 0 1
#> 6 1 1 0 0 0 0
#> 7 0 0 1 1 1 0
#> 8 1 0 0 0 0 1
#> 9 1 1 0 1 1 1
#> 10 1 0 1 0 1 0