{
  "abstract": "We read the recent paper1 on outcome selection in psychiatric trials with great interest. The authors highlight four concerns: the predominant focus on symptom reduction scales as primary outcomes, short-term follow-up, lack of systematic reporting on adverse effects and heterogeneity in outcomes across trials. We appreciate the effort and commitment to draw attention to these important issues and advocate for a person-centred approach. Our primary concern lies with the authors’ proposed alternative to symptom scales, which they critique based on unclear psychometric properties and the limited knowledge of their minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs). Instead, they advocate prioritising so-called ‘hard outcomes’ such as employment status, hospitalisations, suicide attempts and mortality.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark"
      ],
      "name": "Dinne Skjærlund Christensen"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel"
      ],
      "name": "David Roe"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Mental Health Center Copenhagen, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark"
      ],
      "name": "Helene Speyer"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Is ‘minimum’ enough? Attending to the ‘important’ in clinically important differences",
  "uid": "aa85ab6b-660b-53c8-9409-f39a37829466"
}