Modeling actor and partner effects in dyadic data when outcomes are categorical

When 2 people interact in a relationship, the outcome of each person can be affected by both his or her own inputs and his or her partner's inputs. For Gaussian dyadic outcomes, linear mixed models taking into account the correlation within dyads are frequently used to estimate actor's and partner's effects based on the actor-partner interdependence model. In this article, we explore the potential of generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) for the analysis of non-Gaussian dyadic outcomes. Several approximation techniques that are available in standard software packages for these GLMMs are investigated. Despite the different modeling options related to these different techniques, none of these have an overall satisfactory performance in estimating actor and partner effects and the within-dyad correlation, especially when the latter is negative and/or the number of dyads is small. An approach based on generalized estimating equations for the analysis of non-Gaussian dyadic data turns out to be an interesting alternative