Book excerpt: This book has been prepared to help psychiatrists expand their knowledge of statistical methods and fills the gaps in their applications as well as introduces data analysis software. The book emphasizes the classification of fundamental statistical methods in psychiatry research that are precise and simple. Professionals in the field of mental health and allied subjects without any mathematical background can easily understand all the relevant statistical methods and carry out the analysis and interpret the results in their respective fields without consulting a statistician. The sequence of the chapters, the sections within the chapters, the subsections within the sections, and the points within the subsections have all been arranged to help professionals in classification refine their knowledge in statistical methods and fill the gaps, if any. Emphasizing simplicity, the fundamental statistical methods are demonstrated by means of arithmetical examples that may be reworked with pencil and paper in a matter of minutes. The results of the rework have to be checked by using SPSS, and in this way professionals are introduced to this psychiatrist-friendly data analysis software. Topics covered include: • An overview of psychiatry research • The organization and collection of data • Descriptive statistics • The basis of statistical inference • Tests of significance • Correlational data analysis • Multivariate data analysis • Meta-analysis • Reporting the results • Statistical software The language of the book is very simple and covers all aspects of statistical methods starting from organization and collection of data to descriptive statistics, statistical inference, multivariate analysis, and meta-analysis. Two chapters on computer applications deal with the most popular data analysis software: SPSS. The book will be very valuable to professionals and post-graduate students in psychiatry and allied fields, such as psychiatric social work, clinical psychology, psychiatric nursing, and mental health education and administration.