re-coding data into categories R - r

Question

I have a column with some numbers, each corresponding to a primary condition of a patient. I want to recode this data into types of conditions ex. neurological, psychiatric etc
Can you please help as the code below is horrendous (and also not working)
October_data_UK$Primary_cat <- ifelse(October_data_UK$PRIMARY==2|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==5|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==7|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==10|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==13|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==14|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==16|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==23|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==24|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==27,"Chronic_pain",
ifelse(October_data_UK$PRIMARY==4|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==9|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==15|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==21|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==22|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==31|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==35|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==37|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==38, "Neurological",
ifelse(October_data_UK$PRIMARY==1|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==3|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==6|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==12|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==17|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==18|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==20|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==25|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==26,October_data_UK$PRIMARY==30|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==32|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==34|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==36,"Psychiatric",
ifelse(October_data_UK$PRIMARY==8|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==11|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==19|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==33|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==28|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==29|October_data_UK$PRIMARY==39,"Other",NA))))
I just want to write all the numbers together without having to repeat "October_data_UK$PRIMARY"

Answer 1

Try assigning the values with logical indices.
Chronic_pain <- c(2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 23, 24, 27)
Neurological <- c(4, 9, 15, 21, 22, 31, 35, 37, 38)
Psychiatric <- c(1, 3, 6, 12, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 36)
Other <- c(8, 11, 19, 33, 28, 29, 39)
i1 <- October_data_UK$Primary_cat %in% Chronic_pain
i2 <- October_data_UK$Primary_cat %in% Neurological
i3 <- October_data_UK$Primary_cat %in% Psychiatric
#i4 <- October_data_UK$Primary_cat %in% Other
October_data_UK$Primary_cat <- NA_character_ # this creates the column
October_data_UK$Primary_cat[i1] <- "Chronic_pain"
October_data_UK$Primary_cat[i2] <- "Neurological"
October_data_UK$Primary_cat[i3] <- "Psychiatric"