Fits a parametric competing risks model assuming independent latent failure
times, where each cause-specific baseline follows a 4-parameter Beta-Danish
distribution.
Usage
fit_bd_competing(time, cause, n_starts = 5, method = "BFGS")
Arguments
- time
Numeric vector of observed times.
- cause
Integer vector of event causes. `0` indicates right-censored,
and `1, 2, ..., m` indicate specific event causes.
- n_starts
Integer; number of random starts for the joint optimization.
- method
Optimization method passed to `maxLik`.
Value
An object of class `bd_competing`.
Details
Under the assumption of independent latent failure times, the joint likelihood
factorizes. The function first fits independent Beta-Danish models for each
cause (treating other causes as censored) to find robust starting values,
then optimizes the joint likelihood.