Bayesian probability of agreement for comparing survival or reliability functions with parametric lifetime regression models

摘要

In this article, we describe a quantitative approach for comparing the reliability or survival functions for two populations. The Bayesian probability of agreement (BPA) quantifies the similarity of the functions in regions of interest in the covariate space while accounting for a user-specified measure of what constitutes a practically important difference. The BPA method can be flexibly used for relationships with any number of covariates and for a variety of parametric models, including Weibull, lognormal and gamma regression. We provide an R Shiny app that allows practitioners to easily use the method without the need to implement the underlying computational details. Three examples from industrial and medical applications illustrate the implementation of the method as well as how to interpret the results from the analysis.