RELREC, relationship from main domain to related domain but not vice versa

h H

on November 27, 2023

In example 3 (page 259, and RELREC on page 263) of the SDTM IG 3.4, relationships are established from one (parent) domain to another (related) domain while there not always records in the another (related) domain that will match with the parent domain:

BE.BELINKID with value "1" is only related to MB.MBLNKGRP. Values "2" and "3", results in no records.
BE.BELNKID with values "2" and "3" is only linked to MS.MSLNKGRP. Value "1", results in no record.

Can a relation from the parent result in zero child records? If yes, there is a potential danger, that a value of a variable mentioned in IDVAR has no links at all.

In this example isn't better to have separate variables in BE for linking to MB and MS. In that case there is always a relation for each value of the variables mentioned in IDVAR in both directions.

Forums: SDTM

Lex

on December 7, 2023

RELREC comments

Hi Herman,

I don't think you will get much feedback on your question in this forum.
Pinnacle 21 (or Certara) does not define the CDISC standards or write the SDTM IG.

I think the best you can do is providing feedback when a new version of SDTM-IG is in review or open a Jira ticket at CDISC Jira: https://jira.cdisc.org/projects/SPP

Best,
Lex