Consensus reached on the meaning of relapse in schizophrenia, or is it?

Relapse in psychosis is unfortunately a common and distressing experience for people with serious mental health conditions, most notably schizophrenia. Researchers commonly rely on relapse in psychosis as an outcome when determining whether an intervention has been effective, with one estimate suggesting over 50,000 studies exploring it, in some way, between 1975 and 2020 (Kiraz and Demir, 2021). Yet, perhaps unexpectedly, there has been no clear or consistent definition of relapse across studies until now (Moncrieff et al., 2020).

Accepting maintenance treatment with antipsychotic medication can be a difficult decision, as many drugs have significant side effects and long-term use may impact physical health….