# Consequence of ignoring the order of a categorical variable with different levels in logistic regression

As title, I have hesitating whether I should use ordinal logistic regression or not, but I don't think I have time to understand that and to figure out how to work it out in R, can I just ignore it? Will the consequence be serious (i.e. seriously under/over-estimate the effect size)?

Thanks.

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Would you still be interested in knowing how ordinal logistic regression work? It may have serious implications on model interpretation when you ignore the natural ordering of a variable. –  chl Jan 24 '11 at 10:50
Just to be clear, it is the outcome variable that's ordinal? What is the alternative to ordinal logistic regression you're considering? Multinomial logistic regression, or grouping the categories into two groups and using standard logistic regression? –  onestop Jan 24 '11 at 11:13
@onestop, the independent variable is ordinal, but not the outcome variable, outcome variable is whether the patient gets an infection or not –  lokheart Jan 25 '11 at 3:20
Ah, in that case you can definitely ignore ordinal logistic regression, as that's for an ordinal outcome variable. –  onestop Jan 25 '11 at 9:46