Confidence interval construction for proportion ratio in paired studies based on hybrid method

Abstract

In this article, we consider confidence interval construction for proportion ratio in paired samples. Previous studies usually reported that score-based confidence intervals consistently outperformed other asymptotic confidence intervals for correlated proportion difference and ratio. However, score-based confidence intervals may not possess closed-form solutions and iterative procedures are therefore required. This article investigates the problem of confidence interval construction for ratio of two correlated proportions based on a hybrid method. Briefly, the hybrid method simply combines two separate confidence intervals for two individual proportions to produce a hybrid confidence interval for the ratio of the two individual proportions in paired studies. Most importantly, confidence intervals based on this hybrid method possess explicit solutions. Our simulation studies indicate that hybrid Wilson score confidence intervals based on Fieller's theorem performs well. The proposed confidence intervals will be illustrated with three real examples.