Joint Modelling of Event Counts and Survival Times: Example Using Data from the MESS Trial

Most standard survival analysis may treat the prerandomisation event count information as a covariate, possibly measuring this quantity as a covariate with error. We consider a technique that jointly models the pre-randomisation seizure counts and post-randomisation survival times. We allow the pre-randomisation seizure count to depend on the influential baseline covariates, random effects encapsulate additional heterogeneity within the population.