Towards an international expert consensus for defining treatment response, remission, recovery and relapse in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Marked inconsistencies exist in how treatment response, remission, recovery and relapse are defined in clinical trials for obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD). This impairs the comparability of results and communication in the field. Empirical methods (e.g., signal detection analyses) have been used to calculate the optimal amount of symptom improvement to classify an individual as a “responder” or “remitter”, both in adults1, 2, 3, 4 and children5 with OCD. Unfortunately, this has led to different recommendations.