The minimum clinically important difference: which direction to take

Abstract

Over the past decades in modern medicine, there has been a shift from statistical significance to clinical relevance when it comes to interpreting results from clinical trials. A concept that is increasingly being used as a surrogate for clinical relevance and effect size calculation is the minimum clinically important difference (MCID). In this paper, we will present an overview of the most important aspects of the MCID concept used in research trials and we will discuss what this means for the neurological patient in clinical trials and daily practice. Is the MCID the best outcome measure cut‐off to be implemented?