Treating depression and achieving remission

Despite all the advances in understanding the biological underpinnings of depression and the extensive armamentarium of antidepressants remission is a difficult goal to achieve. This in turn impacts the social and occupational functioning and the quality of life. There are several hurdles to achieving remission including accuracy of diagnosis, partial response, suboptimization of the medication, and failure to capture residual symptoms. There is an urgent need to implement strategies to achieve remission including destigmatizing mental illness, educating patients, their families, optimizing treatments, exploring novel interventions and addressing residual symptoms.