Logical Attribute or not

I am modeling a table based on the following form example.

Form Section: Mood

Use the following codes to indicate patterns of mood disorder.

0. Never present
1. Present in last 7 days and was present before
2. Present in last 7 days and was not present before

Mood disorders:

1. Easily distracted
2. Inability to sit still
3. Unhappy
4. Lethargic

Note that a response to each "Mood" indicator is mandatory. That is, "Easily distracted" must be codified using 0,1, or 2. On my logical model I have created an entity called Mood Disorder. It contains a code value pairing for the value and code. e.g. Code for "Easily distracted" of 1.

So, let's say Fred is assessed. The assessor would need to code something for each disorder at the assessment. The physical implementation would include 4 rows of data as follows:

Value                       Code
====                        ====
a                              0
b                              1
c                              2
d                              0

I am getting some push back due to the fact each code value is mandatory. The premise being that since each is mandatory that each should be a logical attribute. I am thinking that would violate 3NF. And, what if 10 mood disorders were added later?

Further, if this data was to be exchanged using XML, would each of a-d be a specific XML tag or would it be typified off of the parent XML root?

Thanks in advance. Received on Fri Mar 17 2006 - 17:13:46 CST