#### suzycat

##### New Member
Hi! Please, please help! have a paper due in 8 days! and can't figure out how to work this out in SPSS. I am looking at whehter there is a relationship between unintended pregnancies (defined as the summation of mistimed and unwanted pregnancies) and experience with intimate partner violence.

I need to create a dependent variable (unintended pregnancies) from the following variables:

1st child-time wanted pregnancy:
1=then
2=later (mistimed)
3=no more (unwanted)

2nd child-time wanted pregnancy:
1=then
2=later (mistimed)
3=no more (unwanted)

3rd child-time wanted pregnancy:
1=then
2=later (mistimed)
3=no more (unwanted)

4th child-time wanted pregnancy:
1=then
2=later (mistimed)
3=no more (unwanted)

Current pregnancy wanted:
1=then
2=later (mistimed)
3=no more (unwanted)

I need to add up all the "later" and "no mores" to create a dependent variable of unintended pregnancies. How on earth do i do this!? I've tried everything and I'm doing something wrong - please help me! I am using a demographic and health survey - so it is a large dataset with over 11,000 cases and over 4,000 variables, so something efficient would really help! ahhh i'm so lost!:shakehead

#### helicon

##### Member
The count command is what you're after. In a new syntax window, modify the following to match the variable names in the dataset and run it.

Code:
count unintended = var1 var2 var3 var4 var5 (2 thru 3).
exe.

#### suzycat

##### New Member
Thank you so much! You are a life saver!! THANK YOU!

#### suzycat

##### New Member
The count command is what you're after. In a new syntax window, modify the following to match the variable names in the dataset and run it.

Code:
count unintended = var1 var2 var3 var4 var5 (2 thru 3).
exe.

wait sorry, spoke to soon. i'm getting odd numbers back. So after I run the syntax, what do the values mean?

attached is the table I"m getting when i run the variable (unintended pregnancies)

does 0 mean the occurrences of 2 and 3 for the first child time wanted?

am i interpreting that correctly? if i am the numbers seem off.

sorry for such a silly question - i'm relatively new to spss... Thank you again!

#### helicon

##### Member
From the URL linked in my first post:

COUNT creates a numeric variable that, for each case, counts the occurrences of the same value (or list of values) across a list of variables.
The 0 indicates that there have been no unintended pregnancies across all pregnancies. 1 indicates that there's been 1 unintended pregnancy across all pregnancies, and so on.

If this is not what you were expecting, you will need to be clearer on what variables you expect and what their values should be. Take the time to provide a small example of your data now and how you'd like the data to appear.