The modeling approach followed procedures outlined by Muthen & Masyn (2005) wherein conventional DTSA is considered a special case within the general latent variable framework which corresponds to a single-class latent class analysis with binary time-specific event indicators. The first step was to fit an unconditional survival model that included only the seven binary time-specific event indicators for the occurrence of AUDs across adulthood. The constant hazard assumption was then evaluated by comparing the unconditional survival model, which allowed the hazard rate to vary across time, to a model that constrained the hazard rate to equality across intervals using a likelihood-ratio test (LRT) based on the model deviance statistics.
