R - Using Stringr to identify a string across hundreds of rows - r

Question

I have a database where some people have multiple diagnoses. I posted a similar question in the past, but now have some more nuances I need to work through:
R- How to test multiple 100s of similar variables against a condition
I have this dataset (which was an import of a SAS file)
ID dx1 dx2 dx3 dx4 dx5 dx6 .... dx200
1 343 432 873 129 12 123 3445
2 34 12 44
3 12
4 34 56
Initially, I wanted to be able to create a new variable if any of the "dxs" equals a certain number without using hundreds of if statements? All the different variables have the same format (dx#). So I used the following code:
Ex:
dataset$highbloodpressure <- rowSums(screen[0:832] == "410") > 0
This worked great. However, there are many different codes for the same diagnosis. For example, a heart attack can be defined as:
410.1,
410.71,
410.62,
410.42,
...this goes on for 20 additional codes. BUT! They all start with 410.
I thought about using stringr (the variable is a string), to identify the common code components (410, for the example above), but am not sure how to use it in the context of rowsums.
If anyone has any suggestions for this, please let me know!
Thanks for all the help!

Answer 1

You can use the grepl() function that returns TRUE if a value is present. In order to check all columns simultaneously, just collapse all of them to one character per row:
df$dx.410 = NA
for(i in 1:dim(df)[1]){
if(grepl('410',paste(df[i,2:200],collapse=' '))){
df$dx.410[i]="Present"
}
}
This will loop through all lines, create one large character containing all diagnoses for this case and write "Present" in column dx.410 if any column contains a 410-diagnosis.
(The solution expects the data structure you have here with the dx-variables in columns 2 to 200. If there are some other columns, just adjust these numbers)