Further evidence that the cutoff to define remission on the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale should be lowered

The results of this study indicate that significant heterogeneity exists among patients scoring 7 and below on the HAM-D. Whatever cutoff score is used to define remission on a symptom severity scale such as the HAM-D, some error will be inherent in dichotomizing a continuously distributed variable. We propose distinguishing between patients who are highly likely to be in remission (0-2 on the HAMD) from patients who are possibly in remission (scoring 3-7).