For this example we’ll use the Eunomia synthetic data from the omock package.
Let’s start by creating two drug cohorts, one for users of diclofenac and another for users of acetaminophen.
cdm$medications <- conceptCohort(cdm = cdm, 
                                 conceptSet = list("diclofenac" = 1124300,
                                                   "acetaminophen" = 1127433), 
                                 name = "medications")
cohortCount(cdm$medications)To check whether there is an overlap between records in both cohorts
using the function intersectCohorts().
cdm$medintersect <- intersectCohorts(
  cohort = cdm$medications,
  name = "medintersect"
)
cohortCount(cdm$medintersect)There are 6 individuals who had overlapping records in the diclofenac and acetaminophen cohorts.
We can choose the number of days between cohort entries using the
gap argument.
cdm$medintersect <- intersectCohorts(
  cohort = cdm$medications,
  gap = 365,
  name = "medintersect"
)
cohortCount(cdm$medintersect)There are 94 individuals who had overlapping records (within 365 days) in the diclofenac and acetaminophen cohorts.
We can also combine different cohorts using the function
unionCohorts().
cdm$medunion <- unionCohorts(
  cohort = cdm$medications,
  name = "medunion"
)
cohortCount(cdm$medunion)We have now created a new cohort which includes individuals in either the diclofenac cohort or the acetaminophen cohort.
You can keep the original cohorts in the new table if you use the
argument keepOriginalCohorts = TRUE.
cdm$medunion <- unionCohorts(
  cohort = cdm$medications,
  name = "medunion",
  keepOriginalCohorts = TRUE
)
cohortCount(cdm$medunion)You can also choose the number of days between two subsequent cohort
entries to be merged using the gap argument.