ABSTRACT
Qualitative data Qualitative variables refer to attributes that can be categorized such that the categories do not have a numerical relationship with each other; e.g. eye colour.
Quantitative data Quantitative variables refer to numerically represented data. These can be of the following types:
∑ discrete quantitative variables which can take on only known fixed values; e.g. the number of new patients seen each week in a psychiatric outpatient department
∑ continuous quantitative variables which can take on any value in a defined range; e.g. the height of psychiatric inpatients.
