A Nonparametric Stratified Test Based on the Jonckheere-Terpstra Trend Statistic

Clinical trials are often carried out as multi-center studies because the patients enrolled for a trial study are very limited in one particular hospital. In these circumstances, the use of an ordinary Jonckheere (1954) and Terpstra (1952) test for testing trend among several independent treatment groups is invalid. We propose a the stratified Jonckheere-Terpstra test based on van Elteren (1960)'s stratified test of Wilcoxon (1945) statistics and an application of our method is demonstrated through example data. A simulation study compares the efficiency of stratified and unstratified Jonckheere-Terpstra trend tests.