Definition of Remission Posted on November 12, 2007 Roger S. McIntyre (bio) distinguishes remission from recovery.

I think that there are differences between recovery and remission. Here in Pittsburgh, there has been wonderful work that’s been conducted. Attempts to bring a language to change points in the course of mood disorders whether it be response remission or relapse or recovery. For me as a clinician when I think about recovery, what I think about is true elimination of symptoms for a significant period of time. Remission is simply the elimination of symptoms. But I think one of the criticisms of definitions of remission is that how long should the absence of symptoms be?

If someone has no symptoms for a day, for example, are they in remission? Many in the field would embrace some type of minimum duration, two weeks is often talked about as a minimum duration for a remission to occur. And recovery we often think about as being a minimum of at least eight weeks or two months of no symptoms. So remission to me is the notion of achieving that endpoint. There’s no symptoms.

But recovery means more of a sustained remission and along with that I think a functional domain, that is, a functional recovery as well. And I think one of the criticisms of remission as it’s been defined by many groups up until recently is that remission definitions have focused largely on symptoms with less attention being paid to the functioning.

I think we all would agree that if somebody has very few symptoms of depression but they’re unable to function, it’s hard to call that really, truly remission. And so I think any coherent, any competent definition of remission needs to include that functional component. And I think when we think recovery, we’re thinking not only symptomatic elimination, but also that functional return.

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