A basis approach to goodness-of-fit testing in recurrent event models.

A class of tests for the hypothesis that the baseline hazard function in Cox's proportional hazards model and for a general recurrent event model belongs to a parametric family C identical with {lambda(0)(.; xi): xi in Xi} is proposed. Finite properties of the tests are examined via simulations, while asymptotic properties of the tests under a contiguous sequence of local alternatives are studied theoretically. An application of the tests to the general recurrent event model, which is an extended minimal repair model admitting covariates, is demonstrated. In addition, two real data sets are used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed tests.